Jennifer Pan

Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor of Chinese Studies, Professor of Communication, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and of Sociology
BA, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs (2004)
PhD, Harvard University, Government (2015)
Jennifer Pan
Jennifer Pan is a political scientist whose research focuses on political communication, digital media, and authoritarian politics. She is the Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor of Chinese Studies, Professor of Communication and (by courtesy) Political Science, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute.

Dr. Pan's research uses experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity to answer questions about the role of digital media in authoritarian and democratic politics, including how political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation work in the digital age and how preferences and behaviors are shaped as a result. Her book, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford, 2020) shows how China's pursuit of political order transformed the country’s main social assistance program, Dibao. Her papers have appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Communication, and Science.

She graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Government.

Contact