I am an Associate Professor of Information Science in the iSchool (School of Information Science) at the University of South Carolina. My research spans human-centered AI, health informatics, data science, and social media analytics. I am also a member of the AI-Peer Project and an affiliated faculty member of the USC Big Data Health Science Center.
I lead the Hi Da (HiDa) Research Lab (Hi Da Lab), where I have had the opportunity to collaborate with undergraduate and graduate students, as well as international scholars across different disciplines. If you are interested in working with me as a co-author, visiting scholar, and Ph.D. student, drop me an email.
I am the Chair of the iSchool’s Ph.D. program at the University of South Carolina.
In my research projects, I utilize data science methods to address questions in various contexts, including health informatics, science of science, social media analysis, and applied AI. The outcomes of my projects have received recognition through publication in academic journals and conferences, including JAMA Network Open, The Journal of Medical Internet Research, Information Processing and Management, The Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, and The Journal of Systems and Software. Essential Science Indicators has acknowledged multiple of my papers as highly cited contributions, ranking them in the top 1%.
I enjoy teaching data visualization, web analytics, user information behavior, research methods, information retrieval, data analytics, and management at the undergraduate, master's, and Ph.D. levels.
Updates
Recent updates and announcements
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Conducting a large-scale survey across 20 countries on Generative AI
Exploring use patterns, benefits, barriers, and trust associated with Generative AI in academia.
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Framing of and Attention to COVID-19 on Twitter (600K+ tweets, framing theory)
Trending hashtags were used to identify frames reflecting public opinion and attention during a health crisis.
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Evaluating the impact of NSF EPSCoR and NIH IDeA programs with UofSC research leadership
Assessing outcomes and broader impacts of major research capacity-building programs.
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Paper accepted at the National Communication Association 107th Annual Convention
Accepted in the Public Relations Division.
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Keynote at Altmetrics 20 on science and society in the age of disinformation
Discussing research evaluation, public discourse, and challenges of misinformation.
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Internal UofSC grant to study COVID-19 misleading information on YouTube
Supporting data collection and analysis to better understand misinformation dynamics on video platforms.
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Journal of Information Science paper on big data across disciplines
We found big data research is no longer limited to computer science, influencing fields including education, urban informatics, business, health, and medical sciences.
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Information Processing and Management paper on Facebook interest and citations in biomedical research
We identified biomedical research topics attracting more Facebook interest and measured relationships between Facebook attention and citation counts.
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The Society for Scholarly Publishing spotlighted our paper
Link can be added here (e.g., SSP newsletter or feature page).
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Silicon Valley trip visiting high-tech companies
Stories from visits to LinkedIn & Google, Facebook & Instagram, Pinterest, eBay, and the Verizon Innovation Center.
More updates can be added here over time (or linked to a dedicated page).