Haiyan Jia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Communication and the Data X Initiative (http://www.lehigh.edu/datax).

Jia earned her doctorate in mass communications at the Pennsylvania State University, and bachelor’s in atmospheric sciences at Peking University in China. Before joining Lehigh’s Data X Digital Media faculty, Jia served as a post-doctoral scholar in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State.

Because of her background, her current work is very interdisciplinary–her research draws from various fields and domains including mass communication, media effects, psychology, sociology, human-computer interaction, and information science.

Specifically, her primary research interest focuses on the psychological and social effects of communication technology, ranging from the Internet and social media to robots and the Internet of Things. Jia also investigates the social and collective aspects of privacy in an increasingly technology-rich world.

Jia has published her work in Communication Research, Human-Computer Interaction, and in numerous conference proceedings publications such as the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) and the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

She teaches data journalism and data visualization, with an emphasis on the role of technology in reshaping the landscape of journalism, transforming readership, and enabling and empowering the new generation of journalists and citizens.