Hi! I am Shengchun, a PhD Candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, affiliated with the Center for Information Networks and Democracy and Penn Human-Computer Interaction Lab. I am currently a visitor of the COSMOS group at The Ohio State University. I will join the School of Journalism at Moody College, UT Austin as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in August 2025.  

My research advances the scholarship on AI-driven media systems and democracy, investigating how AI and algorithms shape users' news behaviors and perceptions in digital media environments and the societal consequences. (1) From the sociotechnical perspective, I examine how algorithmic curation influences news exposure and engagement using computational methods and causal inference; (2) From the sociopsychological perspective, I introduce the concept of Perceptions of Personalized News Environments (PoPs) and test their downstream effects on affective polarization with surveys and experiments. In addition, my research covers social identity groups and platform power. I employ diverse methodologies, blending computational, quantitative, and qualitative social science approaches. 

As an interdisciplinary scholar situated at the intersection of Political Communication, Human-Computer Interaction, and Computational Social Science, I have led peer-reviewed publications in top-tier communication journals such as New Media & Society, Information Communication & Society, Political Communication, and Human-Computer Interaction/Computational Research venues such as ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW)  (more news about my work). 

I have served the communication and computational social science fields as an ad hoc reviewer, course instructor, and event organizer (more about my teaching & service). 

Before joining Annenberg, I obtained an M.A. in Journalism and Communication from Tsinghua University and a B.A. in Communication from Renmin University of China. I was also a former journalist, editor, and media specialist (more about my industry experience).