Nien Tsu (Nancy) Chen
nientsuc [at] usc [dot] edu
Nancy Chen has an honours degree in Media and Communications from the University of Melbourne and a master degree in Communication from the University of Southern California. Prior to joining the doctoral program at USC, she worked in radio and television news and took a two-year position as a public relations officer at the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control. As a doctoral student, Nancy studies health communication with a special interest in emergency and crisis situations. She has conducted research on the role of the news media and the communication practices of public health agencies during the SARS epidemic, avian influenza outbreaks and H1N1 flu pandemic. She has also studied earthquake preparedness in Southern California. During the past two years, Nancy has been involved in an Annenberg initiative to develop a theory-driven local news website as a means to promoting civic engagement in an ethnically diverse neighborhood in Los Angeles. After the website’s launch in September 2010, Nancy has been working with a team in collecting and analyzing data to improve the site and evaluate its impact.