Hi there, welcome to my homepage! I'm Abby QIN Youran (秦悠然). My parents picked my Chinese name "悠 (yōu) 然 (rán)" (carefree) from a hermit's poem, hoping I could free myself from normative expectations and live an authentic life. I have always been striving for that.

I am currently a Ph.D. student and teaching assistant at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

I use mixed methods to study political communication (broadly defined). 

My main lines of research include:

• Geospatial analysis of public opinion, social network, and media ecology

• Censorship, propaganda, and popular resistance in China

• "Political polarization" in electoral democracies

Apart from research, I co-run a Computational Communication Cooperative with Wil M. Dubree, teach research methods (PSYCH 225) & strategic communication (JOUR 345), and cook for people I care about ❤️