Xinyi Wang (Ph.D. ‘25) Named 2026 Penn Climate Scholar
The Health Communication and Equity Lab postdoctoral fellow studies curiosity and information seeking, particularly in the health domain.
Xinyi Wang (Ph.D. '25), a postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, has been named a 2026 Penn Climate Scholar.
The Penn Climate Scholar Program supports Penn's advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across disciplines whose research engages with climate change. The program aims to build a community around climate change scholarship and action on Penn’s campus and to enable participating scholars to broaden their perspectives, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and receive support as they move toward becoming leaders in climate-related research and practice.
Wang’s research focuses on curiosity and ways to enhance it towards accurate health information, as well as the dynamic interplay between internal processes and external influences in health behavior.
“While the focus of my doctoral training was mostly on health risk topics such as tobacco and nicotine education, I believe a lot of my work could extend to climate risk communication,” Wang says. “Building on prior success in reducing misperceptions and promoting behavior change in my work, I am very interested in extending this work to the climate change domain to address common climate misperceptions and foster climate-related behavior change by strengthening efficacy beliefs and cultivating a stronger sense of urgency to act.”
Wang is one of 23 postdocs and advanced graduate students making up the inaugural cohort of Penn Climate Scholars. “I am very excited about this opportunity and about being selected as a fellow in the 2026-2027 cohort,” she says. “This is a highly collaborative opportunity spanning all 12 schools at the University, so I will have the chance to interact and engage with a group of cross-disciplinary scholars. I look forward to the monthly engagements and workshops with other postdocs from other schools and the potential to collaborate on research projects.”
During her time as a Penn Climate Scholar, Wang will continue her research with Annenberg’s Health Communication & Equity Lab, which employs communication science to achieve health equity for all.
