Communication lecturer Xia Zheng, of the School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ), has been accepted to the American Academy of Health Behavior’s Research Scholars Mentorship Program.
The competitive program gives early-career researchers the opportunity to seek valuable research advice and access to various resources by pairing them with more experienced investigators.
“This mentorship program is a great opportunity to learn from senior scholars associated with the American Academy of Health Behavior,” said Zheng. “It will allow me to have high-quality mentorship interactions with seasoned investigators who share similar research interests with me.”
The American Academy of Health Behavior aims to improve public health research by encouraging diversity and providing a “research home” for health behavior scholars.
Zheng’s research focuses on human health behaviors and how media-based interventions can affect them.
“The Research Scholars Mentorship Program provides a mechanism to hold myself accountable regarding implementing my plans; it also provides valuable resources for me,” Zheng said.
Zheng has been a lecturer at Stony Brook University for one year and will be starting as an assistant professor this fall.
“This program is a tremendous opportunity for Xia, and for our faculty’s efforts to expand the School and Center’s research portfolio,” said Laura Lindenfeld, dean of the School of Communication and Journalism and executive director of the Alda Center for Communicating Science. “The media people consume have tremendous impacts on their actions and, in turn, on individual and public health. We see it in tobacco and alcohol use, in vaccine hesitancy, and in many other ways. Xia’s work helps us better understand those impacts and learn how to better support positive health outcomes through media and communication.”
— Menka Suresh, Science Communication MS Graduate Student
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