Dr. Meng Chen Accepts Position at the Prestigious Shanghai Jiao Tong University

The Department of Communication is proud to announce that Dr. Meng Chen, who earned her PhD in 2018, has accepted an Assistant Professor position in the Communication Department at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. SJTU has been consistently ranked among the top four research universities in China. Dr. Chen’s prior position was at Webster University, Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Chen’s research focuses on the strategic use of narratives in health promotion messaging. Her work has been primarily experimental. She has examined the effects of narrator point of view, protagonist-audience similarity, protagonist competence, and linguistic agency on narrative persuasion. Dr. Chen has recently begun to apply computational methods to health-related social media posts and news stories. She is also proficient in meta-analysis methods. A very productive scholar, Dr. Chen's research has been published in the Journal of Health Communication, Health Communication, Communication Research, Psychology and Health, Journal of Health Psychology, Social Science Computer Review, Computers in Human Behavior, and Pain Medicine.

Looking to the future at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Dr. Chen said: “I look forward to using the advanced methods and skills I learned at UC Davis to investigate how language can be optimized to promote health in the new media era.”

Professor Emeritus Robert Bell, who was Dr. Chen’s advisor, observed that “Meng is well on her way to becoming a star in the field of health communication. Her research bridges theory and application in truly compelling ways. I am so proud of her.”