PhD Topic: Sociocultural turn: Investigating complexities of political ideologies and belief in political information

PhD Supervisors: Dr Jens Madsen and Professor Bradley Franks

Chen-Ta is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychological and Behavioral Science (PBS) at the London School of Economics (LSE). His academic interests lie in the intersection of political psychology, digital technologies and daily life, cultural studies as well as geo-politics. Chen-Ta’s doctoral project is entitled ‘Sociocultural turn: Investigating complexities of political ideologies and belief in political information’. Through using a range of mixed methods (surveys, in-depth interviews and experiments), he aims to critically unpack complex relationships interwoven with divided political identities, perceived moral foundations, collectivistic norms in the process of political (dis)information consumption, from information access, interpretation through to belief update. 

Currently, Chen-Ta teaches classes in Cognitive Psychology and Developmental Psychology at the LSE and Discovering Quantitative and Qualitative Methods at the Social Research Institute (SRI), University College London (UCL). He also serves as a guest lecturer teaching about effective leadership, the impact of AI and organisational change for summer school at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. In addition, he works as a part-time research officer at the LSE Eden Centre where he supervises Economics, Law and PBS students to conduct research towards the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for LSE Congress.

Prior to joining the PBS department, Chen-Ta held various research-related roles in both industry and academia. He was Head of Research at a global financial information service firm based in London. During this role, he collaborated with 400+ economists and political scientists across various sectors (e.g. Word Bank, IMF, PwC, OECD, UNDP, BNP Paribas, Johns Hopkins University) to produce global country risk outlooks. Chen-Ta was also invited to be a guest lecturer to talk about his research outputs within industry at Exeter University, POLIS at University of Cambridge, EDHEC Business School (France) and Vaasa University (Finland).

Chen-Ta has been involved within the academic environment since 2014. He was a graduate researcher and associated lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London where he researched and taught about cultural studies and interpersonal communications on social media. While working as part-time research officer at the LSE in 2019, he was the organizer and presenter of the panel ‘Theorizing Mobile Communication, Researching Mobility: Twenty Years of Perpetual Contact and Beyond‘ within the Mobile Communication Interest Group at the International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference.  

Chen-Ta holds a MSt degree in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School where his degree dissertation ‘Exploring Remote Working Experiences among Working Parents in Post-Covid19 Britain’ was awarded a distinction. He also received an MSc degree in Social Research Methods with concentration on media and communications at the LSE and a MA degree in Digital Culture and Society at King’s College London (KCL). Before moving to the UK, he lived in Taipei and studied and worked in the media arts and strategic communications fields.