Bu Zhong, Ph.D.
Biography
Bu Zhong is a professor in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, Penn State. He is also an affiliate professor at Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, a faculty affiliate the Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, Center for Social Data Analytics (SoDA), Media Effects Research Lab, ICT4D Consortium, and a senior fellow of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. Currently, he is the senior editor of Computers in Human Behavior. His research applies decision-making theories to the analysis of information processing and its effects on behavior, cognition, mental health, and social well-being. He explores human-technology interactions as a complex adaptive system, in which the complexity of social systems and health disparities driven by digital transformation has been extensively scrutinized. His recent work focuses on studying opioid use disorder as both a social and health crisis, which identifies key economic determinants and other underlying social factors that contribute to addiction vulnerability and treatment outcomes.