What are you currently working on?

I'm working on two projects. With Dr. Mimi Brinberg, I'm studying how parents and teens experience mobile phone interference and how they perceive the role of phones in their daily lives. With Dr. Joe Bayer, I'm analyzing phone logs and experience sampling data to understand how people make sense of their own phone use, whether they see it as habit or goal‑driven, how they estimate their time on their phones, and how those perceptions relate to their actual behavior.

 

Can you share a project that changed the way you think or work? 

My first master's project, an experience sampling study on how smartphones affect flow states, changed me a lot. The project had many imperfections and flaws, but at the end of the study I was debriefing participants when some of them began sharing their real experiences, I realized how nuanced and complex phone use truly is. 

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Which piece of work feels closest to your heart, and why?

My book chapter on longitudinal methods with Dr. Brinberg and Dr. Bayer. During my master’s, there were days when I had to figure out multilevel modeling completely on my own (it’s funny now!), but in my first semester of the PhD at OSU, I not only learned it deeply but also had the chance to write about it with my advisors. I love that project so much.

 

What's a question you keep returning to?

How do phones shape people’s feelings of social connection?

 

If you had a tagline or motto, what would it be? 

“We are all small players on an endless stage.”

I believe it’s from Shakespeare. It reminds me that I’m just one small part of a much larger world and that my problems usually aren’t as big as they feel.

 

If time, money, and logistics weren't a concern, what dream project would you dive into?

I’d study how people use their phones to stay socially connected, and how different kinds of disconnection whether from phones or from people- affect them. Is it good? Bad? Both? I want to understand the full spectrum of those experiences.

 

What's one thing you wish someone had told you when you were starting out as a scholar? 

Ask yourself, “So what?” and keep asking it and make sure the effort you’re putting into a project matches the importance of the question!

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What is a book or paper that shaped the way you think about the world?

My Sweet Orange Tree (Meu Pé de Laranja Lima) by José Mauro de Vasconcelos. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking novel that shaped how I think about resilience, empathy, and the emotional worlds people carry with them.

 

Who's someone whose work deserves more attention - and who you want to nominate as the next featured scholar? 

Yifei Lu, for both.