Jingwen Zhang

Education

• Ph.D., Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 2016
• M.A., Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 2013
• M.A., English, Clemson University, 2011
• B.A., Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, 2009

About

Jingwen Zhang is an Associate Professor of the Department of Communication and an Affiliate Faculty of the Department of Public Health Sciences and East Asian Studies at the University of California Davis. She received her PhD in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zhang’s research focuses on understanding, designing, and testing emerging persuasive technologies in shaping public attitudes and behaviors. She has conducted many clinical trials that demonstrated the efficacy and mechanisms of social media, online social networks, and mobile applications in changing health attitudes and behaviors. Her most recent research programs focus on understanding and developing conversational AI or chatbot in persuasion and health promotion. She received the Lingnan Award for Excellence in Health Informatics (Lingnan Foundation, 2024), Everett M. Rogers Award (American Public Health Association, 2023) and Ayman El-Mohandes Young Professional Public Health Innovation Award (American Public Health Association, 2021). Her research has been consistently supported by national funding agencies (e.g., NIH, NSF) and foundations (e.g., Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). Dr. Zhang’s research have been published in a wide range of top journals, including The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications, Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Health Communication, American Journal of Public Health, Preventive Medicine, Annual Review of Sociology, etc.

Research Focus

Jingwen Zhang's research program centers on persuasion, emerging technologies, and health communication, with a focus on understanding the effects and mechanisms of social media, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies on information generation, processing, and their influence on human interactions and decision-making. The fundamental goal is to improve health and society by changing perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Current research efforts emphasize the development and explication of persuasive online networks, mobile technologies, AI-powered chatbots, and computational approaches in health and prosocial contexts.

Recent Publications 

Research on artificial intelligence, AI-human communication, and chatbot:

• Oh, Y. J., Liang, K. H., Kim, D. D., Zhang, X., Yu, Z., Fukuoka, Y., & Zhang, J. (2025). Enhancing physical activity through a relational artificial intelligence chatbot: a feasibility and usability study. Digital Health, 11. doi:10.1177/20552076251324445
• Oh, Y. J., Zhang, J., Fang, M. L., & Fukuoka, Y. (2021). A systematic review of artificial intelligence chatbots for promoting physical activity, healthy diet, and weight loss. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 18(1), 1-25. doi: 10.1186/s12966-021-01224-6
• Liao, W., Zhang, J., Oh, Y.J., Palomares, N. (2021). Linguistic accommodation enhances compliance to charity donate: the role of interpersonal communication processes in mediated compliance-gaining conversations. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,173-191. doi:10.1093/jcmc/zmab001
• Zhang, J., Oh, Y. J., Lange, P., Yu, Z., & Fukuoka, Y. (2020). Artificial intelligence chatbot behavior change model for designing artificial intelligence chatbots to promote physical activity and a healthy diet. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(9), e22845. doi: 10.2196/22845
• Shi, W., Wang, X., Oh, Y., Zhang, J., Sahay, S., & Yu, Z. (2020). Effects of persuasive dialogues: testing bot identity and strategies of inquiry. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20), April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA. Available: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3313831.3376843

Research on health communication and intervention:

• Qian, S., Chen, K., Meng, J., Shen, C., Chen, A., & Zhang, J. (2024). Fear in media headlines increases public risk perceptions but decreases preventive behaviors: a multi-country study during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Health Communication, 1-11. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2024.2439468
• Centola, D., Becker, J., Zhang, J., Aysola, J., Guilbeault, D., & Khoong, E. (2023). Experimental evidence for structured information-sharing networks reducing medical errors. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120 (31), e2108290120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2108290120
• Centola, D., Guilbeault, D., Sarkar, U., Khoong, E., & Zhang, J. (2021). The reduction of race and gender bias in clinical treatment recommendations using clinician peer networks in an experimental setting. Nature Communications, 12(2):6585. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-26905-5
• Zhang, J., Featherstone, J. D., Calabrese, C., & Wojcieszak, M. (2021). Effects of fact-checking social media vaccine misinformation on attitudes toward vaccines. Preventive Medicine, 145, 106408. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2020.106408
• Zhang, J., & Centola, D. (2019). Social networks and health: new developments in diffusion, online and offline. Annual Review of Sociology, 45, 91-109. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041421

Research on social networks and social media:

• Xue, H., Zhang, J., & Zhang, X. (2025). Facts or feelings? Leveraging emotionality as a fact-checking strategy on social media in the United States. Social Media + Society, 11(1), 1-16. doi: 10.1177/2056305125131817
• Xue, H., Zhang, J., Shen, C., & Wojcieszak, M. (2024). The majority of fact-checking labels in the United States are intense and this decreases engagement intention. Human Communication Research, 50(4), 530–544. doi:10.1093/hcr/hqae007
• Hoes, E., Aitken, B., Zhang, J., Gackowski, T., & Wojcieszak, M. (2024). Prominent misinformation interventions reduce misperceptions but increase scepticism. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1545–1553. doi:10.1038/s41562-024-01884-x

Teaching

Jingwen Zhang teaches the following undergraduate and graduate courses:

CMN 112, Theories of Persuasion

CMN 178, Persuasive Technologies

CMN/SPH 232, Health Communication

CMN/SPH 233, Persuasive Technologies for Health

Awards

• Top paper award, “Message sensation value in short videos enhances message processing and persuasion, especially for young adults,” International Communication Association Conference, Denver, CO, 2025
• Lingnan Award for Excellence in Health Informatics, Lingnan Foundation, 2024
• Best Social Impact Paper Award, “How johnny can persuade llms to jailbreak them: rethinking persuasion to challenge ai safety by humanizing llms,” The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Bangkok, Thailand, 2024
• Everett M. Rogers Award, Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section, American Public Health Association, 2023
• Top paper award, “Ritualistic dynamics of task and social-emotional interactions predict interpersonal influence outcomes in compliance-gaining and advice-giving conversations,” International Communication Association Conference, Paris, France, 2022
• The Ayman El-Monhandes Young Professional Public Health Innovation Award, American Public Health Association, 2021
• Top paper award, “Linguistic accommodation enhances compliance to donate: the role of interpersonal processes in mediated conversations,” International Communication Association Conference, Virtual conference, 2020
• Top paper award, “Facts or stories? How to use social media for cervical cancer prevention: A multi-method study and randomized trial of the effects of sender type and content type on increased message sharing,” International Communication Association Conference, Washington, D.C., 2019
• Russell Ackoff Doctoral Student Fellowship Award, 2015
• President Gutmann Leadership Award, Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 2015

Services

• Section Councilor of the Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section (PHEHP), American Public Health Association, 2022-present
• Chair of the Strategic Vision Committee, Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, 2024-present
• Undergraduate Program Committee, Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, 2024-present
• Executive Committee, Graduate Group in Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis, 2024-present