Skip to Search, Skip to Main navigation, Skip to local navigation, Skip to Content
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

Amy Shirong Lu, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Media Arts and Science

Education

  • Ph.D. Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2009)
  • M.A. Communication Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2004)
  • B.A. English, Peking University (2002)

Biography

Amy joined the IU School of Informatics at IUPUI in 2010. She is interested in the persuasive mechanism of media and communication technologies and their health behavioral and psychological applications. She is also interested in virtual media characters (in animation and video games) and their potential application in communicating health messages among youth of different cultures.

She completed her doctorate in Mass Communication with a certificate in Interdisciplinary Health Communication (Concentration: Psychological Processes) from UNC-CH in 2009. From 2009 to 2010, she was a postdoctoral associate at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) /Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Children’s Nutrition Research Center (CNRC) at Baylor College of Medicine training with a group of behavioral nutrition researchers in childhood obesity prevention. She helped with health game development, evaluated health game effects on children’s dietary and physical activity behaviors, and participated in several National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant development projects (as PI or Co-I).

Amy has presented at the annual conferences of International Communication Association (ICA), National Communication Association (NCA), American Public Health Association (APHA), International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). She has received multiple fellowships, scholarships, grants, and top paper awards. Her works have been accepted by Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, Health Communication, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and International Journal of Computer Science in Sport.

Research Interests

  • Health communication
  • Media and communication technology
  • Health games
  • Childhood obesity
  • Animation studies

Related News