The Rutgers University Board of Governors has confirmed the promotion of J. Sophia Fu to Associate Professor with tenure effective July 1, 2024. Fu joined the SC&I Communication Department faculty in 2018 as an assistant professor.
“Dr. Fu’s research on hybrid organizing has generated ground-breaking discoveries about communication and work,” said Chair of the Communication Department and Professor of Communication Marya Doerfel. “She is a prolific scholar and a superb teacher and mentor to her students. We are delighted to celebrate this important milestone and thrilled that she is now a tenured member of our department.”
Fu’s research interests center around organizations, social networks, information and communication technologies (ICTs), innovation, and computational social science. Her research is motivated by one question: How can organizations more effectively catalyze organizational and social change?
Fu's research is motivated by one question: How can organizations more effectively catalyze organizational and social change?
Using multiple methods, such as interviews, content analysis, social network analysis, and statistical modeling, Fu examines the dynamic processes of organizing for public value creation.
She is particularly interested in how new ICTs, such as social media, crowdfunding, and big data and analytics tools, enable organizations to communicate with external stakeholders in new ways; how the new communication processes can change organizational and interorganizational structures; and how shifts in organizational and interorganizational structures impact organizational, network, and community outcomes. The aim in her streams of research is to help address grand challenges, such as public health challenges, environmental degradation, educational inequality, and social exclusion.
Fu is a member of the SC&I research groups Computational Social Science Lab, the Health and Wellness Cluster, the NetSCI Lab, and the Social Media and the Social Media and Society Cluster (SMS).
"Sophia Fu is a model of an upcoming scholar: her productivity of brilliant scholarship; her dedication to her students; her many service contributions to the school and beyond – she is hard to match!," said SC&I Interim Dean Dafna Lemish. "It is so wonderful to see her bloom so wonderfully into the rank of associate professor with tenure. I am delighted for Sophia, the department, and the school!"
Using multiple methods, such as interviews, content analysis, social network analysis, and statistical modeling, Fu examines the dynamic processes of organizing for public value creation.
Fu is the recipient of many honors and awards for her research from the Academy of Management, the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association, the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, and the National Science Foundation. In 2023 alone she was named the recipient of an Outstanding Article of the Year Award (Fu & Cooper, 2022b) from the Organizational Communication Division, National Communication Association; the PRIDE Outstanding Book Award from the Public Relations Division, National Communication Association; the Linda L. Putnam Early Career Scholar Award from the Organizational Communication Division, International Communication Association; the Wiley Top Cited Article in 2021–2022 (Fu & Cooper, 2021) from Nonprofit Management & Leadership; the Best Faculty Article Award (Fu & Cooper, 2022b) from the Chinese Communication Association; and a SciComm Identities Project (SCIP) Fellow, which is an NSF-funded 1-year fellowship training in science communication from Metcalf Institute, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, and Science and Story Lab at MSU and URI.
Fu earned a bachelor’s degree from Hong Kong Baptist University in International Journalism, and three graduate degrees from Northwestern University: a Master of Science in Statistics; a Master of Arts in Media, Technology, and Society; and a Ph.D. in Media, Technology, and Society.
To read more about Fu, please see the following SC&I articles:
J. Sophia Fu Awarded a 2023 SCIP Fellowship
J. Sophia Fu Receives Top Dissertation Award for her Research on Social Entrepreneurship
ICA Awards J. Sophia Fu the W. Charles Redding Dissertation Award
J. Sophia Fu Awarded Top Early Career Scholar Paper Award
Learn more about the Communication Department at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information on the website.
