The latest release of Stanford University’s list of the world’s top 2% scientists has recognized Prof. Ki Joon Kim among the world’s most-cited scientists for the seventh consecutive year since the list was first released in 2020. According to the latest ranking based on 2025 Scopus data, Prof. Kim ranked 90th (top 0.55%) of 16,381 scientists with at least five published papers in the field of human factors.

Dr. Yuanyi Mao (’25) has been appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Beijing Normal–Hong Kong Baptist University (BNBU). Dr. Mao earned his Ph.D. in 2025 under Prof. Ki Joon Kim’s supervision and served as a postdoctoral fellow at City University of Hong Kong before joining BNBU. His research focuses on human–AI communication in healthcare as well as online aggression and incivility. His work has appeared in leading journals, including Social Science Computer Review, Behaviour & Information Technology, Technology in Society, Social Media + Society, and Computers in Human Behavior.

Congratulations to Dr. Mao!

Dr. Yuheng Wu has been awarded the prestigious Junior Research Fellowship by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. The fellowship will support his postdoctoral research over the next two years in the Department of Media and Communication (COM) at City University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Prof. Ki Joon Kim.

Having joined COM in 2021 as a joint Ph.D. student, Dr. Wu earned his first Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2025 and is currently completing his second Ph.D. at COM under Prof. Kim’s supervision. His research aims to advance a sociopsychological understanding of human–AI interaction and human–machine communication, with particular attention to how increasingly agentic AI systems shape human experiences, psychological well-being, and agency. His work has appeared in leading venues, including the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society, and the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Congratulations to Dr. Wu!

Prof. Ki Joon Kim will be on sabbatical leave from mid-December 2025 to late July 2026. All research activities and doctoral supervision will continue as usual during this period.

The latest release of Stanford University’s list of the world’s top 2% scientists has recognized Prof. Ki Joon Kim among the world’s most-cited scientists for the sixth consecutive year since the list was first released in 2020. According to the latest ranking based on 2024 Scopus data, Prof. Kim is among the top 0.48% of the world’s most-cited scientists in the field of human factors and ranks third in Asia. He is also among the top 0.32% across all scientific fields.

Dr. Sai Wang (’21) and Dr. Bo Hu (’25), Prof. Ki Joon Kim’s former doctoral advisees and lab members, have recently secured tenure-track faculty positions at leading universities in Hong Kong and Macau. Dr. Wang has been promoted from Research Assistant Professor to Assistant Professor in the Department of Interactive Media at Hong Kong Baptist University after receiving the General Research Fund from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong for two consecutive years.

Dr. Hu has been appointed Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Arts at Macau University of Science and Technology, where he will lead interdisciplinary research on human–machine communication.

Big congratulations to these two rising scholars!

Yuanyi Mao and Bo Hu, both supervised by Prof. Ki Joon Kim, successfully defended their dissertations, titled “Understanding Doctor–Patient Dynamics in AI-Enabled Healthcare: The Effects of AI Doctors’ Communication Styles on Psychological and Health Outcomes” and “The Roles of Verbal Socialness and Visual Anthropomorphism in Mental Health Chatbot Counselors for Individuals with Social Anxiety,” respectively. As the rapid integration of generative AI into society presents both opportunities and challenges across diverse fields, their dissertations offer timely insights into the roles and strategic applications of AI, particularly in healthcare.

Congratulations to Dr. Mao and Dr. Hu!

Prof. Ki Joon Kim has received another Teaching Development Grant (TDG) funded by the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong. The funded project, titled “Theories and Skills for Designing Generative AI-based Chatbots from a Communication Perspective,” aims to help students in Prof. Kim’s courses learn various communication theories and concepts that explain how users engage with technology. Building on this knowledge, students will develop theory- and evidence-based design strategies that foster positive overall user experiences with generative AI. By bridging theory and practice, the project seeks to prepare students for future opportunities in an AI-driven landscape.

The latest release of Stanford University’s list of the world’s top 2% scientists has recognized Prof. Ki Joon Kim among the world’s most-cited scientists for the fifth consecutive year since the list was first released in 2020. According to the latest ranking based on 2023 Scopus data, Prof. Kim is among the top 0.5% of the world’s most-cited scientists in the field of human factors and ranks second in Asia.

The latest release of Stanford University’s list of the world’s top 2% scientists has recognized Prof. Ki Joon Kim among the world’s most-cited scientists for the fourth consecutive year since the list was first released in 2020. According to the latest ranking based on 2022 Scopus data, Prof. Kim is among the top 0.63% of the world’s most-cited scientists in the field of human factors and ranks second in Asia.

Two Ph.D. students, Bo Hu and Yanfei Wu, have joined the lab.

Bo holds a B.A. in Journalism from Northwest University and an M.A. in Journalism and Communication from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He is currently a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Media and Communication at City University of Hong Kong.

Yanfei holds a B.A. in Network and New Media from Sichuan University and an M.A. in Emerging Media Studies from Boston University. She is a new Ph.D. student joining the Department in fall 2023.

The latest update of Stanford University’s list of the world’s top 2% scientists has recognized Prof. Ki Joon Kim among the most-cited scientists for the third consecutive year since the list was first released in 2020. According to the latest ranking based on 2021 Scopus data, Prof. Kim is among the top 0.5% of the world’s most-cited scientists in the field of human factors and the top 0.37% across all scientific fields.

Prof. Ki Joon Kim is currently on sabbatical leave until early January 2023. All research activities and doctoral supervision will continue as usual during this period.

Prof. Ki Joon Kim has received a competitive research grant from the Academy of Korean Studies under the Ministry of Education of South Korea. The funded project, titled “Effects of South Korean Homogeneity on the Perceptions of Patients with Coronavirus Disease: A Comparison of Hybrid Social Identities in Hong Kong,” will examine how South Koreans’ homogeneous identity, which emphasizes pure Korean-ness, influences the way they perceive and respond to COVID-19 patients. The project will compare this with the role of Hong Kong people’s complex, hybrid social identities (“Chinese, but also Hongkongese” or “Hongkongese, but also Chinese”). The findings are expected to contribute to a greater understanding and the sociopsychological healing of polarized individuals in the pandemic and post-pandemic eras.

In 2020, a study conducted by a Stanford University research team named Prof. Ki Joon Kim among the top 1% of the world’s most-cited scientists in the field of human factors, based on 2019 Scopus data.

The latest update of the study, based on 2020 Scopus data, shows that Prof. Kim now ranks 74th (top 0.52%) of 14,266 scientists who have published at least five papers in the field of human factors. Only three scientists in the top 150 are affiliated with Asian universities, namely City University of Hong Kong, Nanyang Technological University, and the University of Tokyo.

Prof. Ki Joon Kim has received the 2021 Outstanding Research Award and a prize of US$ 22,000, the highest recognition of research excellence at City University of Hong Kong. An expert panel comprising senior academicians of the University and external reviewers unanimously selected Prof. Kim as this year’s award recipient in recognition of his world-class research and scholarship. Only three humanities and social sciences faculty members have won the award before Prof. Kim since its inception in 2007. 

Prof. Ki Joon Kim received the 2021 Outstanding Research Award, the highest recognition of research excellence at City University of Hong Kong, along with a prize of US$22,000. An expert panel comprising senior academics of the University and external reviewers unanimously selected Prof. Kim as this year’s award recipient in recognition of his world-class research and scholarship. Prof. Kim is one of only four faculty members in the humanities and social sciences to have received the award since its inception in 2007.

Two new Ph.D. students, Yuanyi Mao and Yuheng Wu, have joined the lab.

Yuanyi holds a B.A. in Broadcasting from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and an M.A. in Journalism and Communication from the School of Media and Communication at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU).

Yuheng, also joining from SJTU, is a joint Ph.D. student. He holds a B.A. in Advertising from Sichuan University and is currently a first-year Ph.D. student in the School of Media and Communication at SJTU.

Sai Wang, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Media and Communication at City University of Hong Kong, successfully defended her dissertation, titled “Cross-cutting Exposure in Online News Comments: How Group Identification and Uncivil Discourse Affect Deliberative Outcomes.” She will soon join Hong Kong Baptist University as a research assistant professor.

In other exciting news, Sai received the 2021 Top Student Paper Award from the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association for her paper titled “Man vs. Machine: The Impact of Algorithmic Comment Moderation on News Perceptions.” The final version of this paper has been published in Digital Journalism.

Prof. Ki Joon Kim has been awarded early promotion to Associate Professor with tenure, effective 1 July 2021, becoming the first and only faculty member in the Department of Media and Communication at City University of Hong Kong to receive early promotion with tenure. This was also the only early promotion granted across the entire University in 2021. The promotion was unanimously recommended by the internal staffing committee and external reviewers in recognition of his distinguished contributions to academia and the University.

After successfully completing his earlier pedagogical project supported by the Teaching Start-up Grant (TSG), Prof. Ki Joon Kim has recently received the Teaching Development Grant (TDG) from the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong, becoming the Department’s first and only recipient of both TSG and TDG. The funded TDG project, titled “Interacting Socially with Artificial Intelligence: Learning to Code, Communicate, and Collaborate with a Smart Robot,” aims to help students in Prof. Kim’s courses better understand and predict the nature, processes, and outcomes of human–AI interaction and AI-mediated communication.

A recent study conducted by a Stanford University research team named Prof. Ki Joon Kim among the top 1% of the world’s most-cited scientists. In the field of human factors, Prof. Kim ranked 116th (top 0.88%) of 13,251 scientists with at least five published papers, according to 2019 Scopus data. The ranking drew on a field-specific analysis using a composite indicator that incorporates multiple citation metrics, such as total citations, h-index, and hm-index.

Prof. Ki Joon Kim received the 2020/21 General Research Fund (GRF) from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. The funded project, titled “Social Consensus on Ethical Dilemmas of Autonomous Vehicles in Hong Kong: A Comparison with Collectivist and Individualist Cultures,” investigates whether and how users adopt different moral reasoning strategies to process the various ethical dilemmas arising from the adoption and use of autonomous vehicles. It also examines how this process shapes their moral judgments and perceptions of the vehicles, with an emphasis on the critical role of cultural differences (Eastern vs. Western) in perceiving and resolving the ethical dilemmas associated with this technology.

Prof. Kim is the Department’s only recipient of this year’s GRF grant.

Sai Wang, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Media and Communication at City University of Hong Kong, has recently published single- and lead-authored articles in top journals. Her study published in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media investigates how the presumed effects of uncivil news comments on other users influence perceivers’ intention to take restrictive or corrective actions. Another study, published in New Media & Society, examines factors influencing cyberbystanders’ likelihood of intervening in cyberbullying on social media. A third study, published earlier this year in the Journal of Product & Brand Management, explores the psychological process through which negative news coverage of a celebrity endorser influences consumer attitudes and purchase intention. “In less than a year, Sai has published three thought-provoking articles in top-tier SSCI journals and presented four papers at major international conferences. She is one of the finest students our doctoral program has produced and is already an independent, productive researcher,” said her Ph.D. supervisor, Prof. Ki Joon Kim.

Prof. Ki Joon Kim has been appointed as an associate editor of Behaviour & Information Technology (BIT), a highly regarded SSCI-indexed journal in human–computer interaction and information technology. Published by Taylor & Francis since 1982, BIT focuses on the relationship between people and technology, reporting original research on the social, behavioural, and psychological impact of human interactions with information and communication technologies in all their forms. Prof. Kim welcomes submissions from a range of disciplines, including human–computer interaction, psychology, ergonomics, sociology, and design, and particularly from communication.

Prof. Ki Joon Kim received the 2018 New Researcher Award and Teaching Start-up Grant from City University of Hong Kong in recognition of his research excellence and innovative teaching initiatives. These awards were established to reflect the University’s commitment to fostering an environment conducive to high-quality research and teaching at an internationally competitive level. Prof. Kim is the Department’s first and only recipient of both awards.