Yumei is a social scientist with a background in both Journalism and Sociology (Ph.D. in Sociology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Mphil. in Sociology at Paris-Sorbonne University; and bachelor’s degree in journalism at Sichuan University). Currently, Yumei is an Assistant Professor at the School of Media and Communication at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Before joining Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Yumei was selected as a Fulbright Scholar to visit The Centre for Culture, Language and Interaction (CLIC) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States (2019-2020). She was also awarded the Global Scholarship for Research Excellence to visit The Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York (UK).

Yumei is fascinated and curious about studying the interplay between social interaction and new technologies. Since encountering video analysis during her PhD, she has become convinced that video provides unprecedented opportunities for research in the social sciences. She has devoted herself to learning and using this innovative way of video analysis to look at the world. Her PhD thesis explores how long-distance family members use video-mediated communication technologies to overcome family separation and try to achieve "distant love". Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals in social science such as Discourse Studies, Journal of Pragmatics, Journalism and Communication Studies and Conference Proceedings in computer science such as CHI'20.

Current Research Interests:

Social Interaction

Human-Computer Interaction

New Media and New Technologies

Video Analysis

Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis