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Louise Hsu

Assistant Professor

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Office: CIS 3096
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bio

Dr. Louise Ying-Chia Hsu is an Assistant Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at the Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications, University of South Florida. She teaches Public Relations classes at Zschool, including Public Relations & Advertising Research, Quantitative Research Methods in Mass Communications, and IPRA Campaigns.

Dr Hsu specializes in researching risk perceptions among resource-challenged populations from media psychology and micro-level perspectives. She uses quantitative methods, social network analysis, and psychophysiological measures to understand how individuals make subjective judgments and respond to risk events in society, as well as their decision-making process. She is also interested in identifying effective communication strategies and message designs to better engage with priority audiences.

Several of her ongoing research projects include communicating wildfire smoke with vulnerable populations, Alzheimer’s Disease communication and risk perceptions, and social media use and information preferences for health communication with Native Americans. She also explores the use of AI-generated images in health and risk communication, particularly on public perceptions of AI labels on social media when processing time-sensitive information. She also explores the role of gen-AI tools in managing psychological well-being among young adults and international college students.

Dr. Hsu has collaborated with partners from industry and academia, including Fortifyd, Taiwan Yahoo!, and Decathlon. She also worked on a disaster preparedness project funded by the Global Disaster Preparedness Center of the American Red Cross to explore how humanitarian rescue organizations in the Asia Pacific Region utilized digital media and technologies for disaster preparedness.

Her research work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Health Communication, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Public Relations Review, Mass Communication and Society, and Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.

EDUcATION

• Ph.D., Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University
• M.A., Institute of Communication Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
• B.A., Department of Advertising and Public Relations & Business Administration minor, Fu Jen Catholic University

teaching areas

• Strategic communication
• Public relations
• Social media
• Quantitative Methods

research specializations

• Risk and disaster communication

• Health message design

• Information processing