UNC Hussman students experiencing financial challenges due to Hurricane Helene may apply for special funding from the school's John B. Adams Emergency Fund. Learn more details and apply.

Faculty

Xinyan (Eva) Zhao

Assistant Professor

Carroll 356

ezhao@unc.edu

Dr. Zhao’s research is centered on computational strategic communication, social networks and emerging media, with a particular emphasis on diverse cultural groups in disaster, crisis and health contexts. Theoretically, she specializes in social media and crisis communication theories, exploring how organizations and individuals consume and engage with converging streams of information. Methodologically, she specializes in computational social science, including large language models, machine learning social network analysis and has developed various tools for automated content analysis. 

Dr. Zhao’s work has been published in top-ranked scholarly journals in communication, including Journal of Computer-mediated Communication, New Media & Society, Communication Monographs, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Public Relations and Public Relations Review, among others. Dr. Zhao’s work has garnered global recognition, evidenced by numerous awards such as three ICA Top Papers between 2017 and 2020, an NCA Top Paper in 2023, an AEJMC Research Award from 2021 to 2022, a General Research Fund (GRF) from the Hong Kong government in 2020, and an Insight Development Grant from the Canadian government for 2022-24. Dr. Zhao’s interdisciplinary collaboration with computer scientists has led to her work being featured in leading CS conferences such as EMNLP (Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing) and ICME (International Conference on Multimedia and Expo).
 

Education