Wendy Weile Zhou is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the East Asia Center & Miller Center at the University of Virginia, and a Lecturer at the Department of Media Studies. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Communication Studies from Georgia State University (GSU), and a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong. As a critical-cultural scholar, her research focuses on Chinese political discourse, global/transnational journalism, Asian/Chinese diaspora media and communication, and the broader intersection of race and gender in the media landscape.

Wendy’s articles have appeared in the China Journal, Asian Journal of Communication, Asian Education and Development Studies, Versus-Quaderni di studi semiotici, Journalism Review (Chinese), the book series China under Xi Jinping: An Interdisciplinary Assessment (Brill), among others. Weaving together the fields of China/Asian studies, global communication, and journalism research, her dissertation and forthcoming book project examine Chinese transnational journalists’ news practices, labor conditions, and career paths to disentangle the interwoven dynamics of geopolitics, media industries, and the digital public sphere amid evolving local-global media hybridity.

Before joining GSU, Wendy served as the Chinese editor of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and as a research assistant at the Journalism and Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong. As a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, she also contributed to other non-profits and media outlets, including but not limited to the New York Times, Financial Times (Chinese version), the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, China Media Project, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, ChinaFile, Quartz, the Initium Media, Caixin Media, and others.