CRSI Lab

Xiaoya Jiang is an assistant professor of computational communication in the Department of Mass Communication, Advertising, and Public Relations. Her research centers on public opinion on societal issues. She uses a variety of methodological perspectives, such as based on data from survey, experiment, and social media platforms, she conducts statistical modeling, machine-learning, time series analysis, and social network analysis to answer research questions. Her studies cover a variety of topics in political, health, and technology related issues.

Zhiyuan Liu is the graduate student lab manager. Zhiyuan's research interests lie at the intersection of political communication, human-computer interaction, and public opinion in digital media environments. Broadly, his work examines how digital technologies shape political information flows, public opinion, political attitudes, and civic participation. He is also interested in how people interact with technology and how digital systems can be designed to better support users. Methodologically, he uses computational methods, experiments, and other empirical approaches to study these questions. Through this work, he aims to use data-driven evidence to address practical communication challenges and contribute to more responsible, human-centered, and socially aware media and AI systems. 

Qixuan (Cherry) He is a Master’s student in Emerging Media Studies. Her research interests lie in political communication, gender and feminist studies, digital platforms, and emerging media. Specifically, her research examines how underrepresented groups are discussed, perceived, and evaluated in mediated environments, and how emerging media dismantle or reinforce the stereotypes that sustain prejudice. Drawing on perspectives from media psychology, political communication, and platform studies, she is interested in understanding how mediated prejudice operates and how information environments might instead foster greater understanding across social differences.

Xiaoke Pu’s research interests lie in the social and psychological dimensions of AI and emerging technologies. She is broadly interested in how the public perceives, interprets, and interacts with emerging technologies in communication contexts, as well as the social implications of these technologies. Methodologically, she uses mixed methods, including experiments, surveys, interviews, and computational approaches, to examine users’ cognitive, psychological, and communicative experiences with technology. 

Ruochen (Anastasia) Lyu is interested in technologically mediated relationships between humans and AI agents, with particular attention to how interaction modalities and communication styles of AI companions shape users’ psychological and relational outcomes. Her research examines how human–AI interaction may generate relational harm, including disruptions to offline interpersonal connections and diminished relational capacity. She is also interested in how users recalibrate expectations and trust in response to memory failures, shifts in conversational patterns, and disruptions in interaction rhythms, as well as the conditions under which users pause, continue, or disengage from AI interaction. Through this work, she aims to inform the design of AI companions that balance emotional support with safeguards against misuse and dependency. 

Miaomiao Yang is a Master’s student in marketing communication research. Her research interests include examining AI-generated text and images, marketing communication and consumer behavior, audience engagement with video games, and entertainment media. She is also an opera performer and street dancer. 

Batyrkhan Baimukhanov got a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence at Boston University and a researcher with the Communication Research Center. He works on large-scale web scraping and dataset construction for computational analysis of news media. His research interests include reinforcement learning, computer vision, and applied machine learning. Batyrkhan Baimukhanov is a lab affiliate.