Amy Niu

• B.A., Changchun University of Science and Technology, Teaching Chinese as Second Language

Professional Achievements: Curriculum Vitae

More information: Presentations and Publications

PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY

Amy Niu is a Ph.D. 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. Building upon social comparison theory, this study explores (1) how exposure to digitally enhanced self-images would influence college female’s satisfaction with their appearance, willingness to take cosmetic surgery and implicit self-esteem; (2) individual differences in the effects of exposure to digitally enhanced self-images.