Amy (Yanzhuo) Niu

Biography

Amy Niu is a PhD. candidate in the Department of Educational Psychology. She received her M.S. degree from the same program in 2016. From 2014 to 2016, she worked as a graduate research associate in the Wisconsin Equity and Inclusion Lab (WEI Lab) at Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). Since 2017 Spring, she has been working as a lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology. She has taught courses on child development, adolescent development and life-span human development on both undergraduate and graduate level.

Research Interests

Since joining the lab, I’ve been interested in studying the socioemotional development of late adolescents and young adults, especially the impact of new technology and social media on these individual’s self-image, the formation of social relationships and socioemotional transitions in new settings. My dissertation project focuses on the effects of auto-beauty filters provided on the increasingly popular selfie apps (e.g. Facetune, Snapchat) on college females’ self-image. My most recent research project assessed potential benefits and risks associated with social media use during the COVID-19 outbreak on college students in China and the US.