Sovannie Len, M.A.
Doctoral Candidate
Graduate Student Researcher

• sovannielen@ucsb.edu
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Sovannie Len (She/Her) is a graduate student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in Psychology at San Jose State University before pivoting to the Communication field. Len examines how race and identity transform in conjunction with a media environment, particularly entertainment media. Additionally, Sovannie was previously the lab manager for the Media MOSAIC lab.

Erick Garcia, M.A.
Graduate Student Researcher
Lab Manager (2025-Present)

• eag@ucsb.edu
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Erick Garcia (He/Him/Él) is currently a M.A./Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his M.A. in Psychological Research from California State University, Long Beach, in 2023 and his B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Irvine, in 2020.

His current research is situated at the intersection(s) of mass communication, computer-mediated communication, media effects, and social psychology (e.g., intergroup relations, social influence). He employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to investigate two lines of research: (1) online hate and approaches to curtail its spread on social media, and (2) how digital media affects social processes (e.g., social and personal identity, influence, contagion, cognition, and the self).

Erick’s scholarship has been recognized nationally, including a Top Paper Award from the Group Communication Division (2025) at the National Communication Association (NCA), and has been published in internationally recognized journals such as the International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction.

Erick’s previous research focused on digital emotional contagion. Focusing on human-algorithm interactions with digital media (e.g., social media platforms). He has also been part of several social psychological research labs and projects, with foci spanning intergroup relations, social justice, vision science, human perception, emotion, aggression, collective action, and ostracism.

Ismaharif Ismail, M.Soc.Sci.
Graduate Student Researcher

• ismaharif@ucsb.edu
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Ismaharif is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. At the intersection of motivation science, social identity and the media, Ismaharif broadly studies group processes, intergroup relations and “wise” psychological interventions. His recent research examines barriers to civil discourse that hinder national progress, leveraging communication technologies (e.g., GenAI chatbots) to understand and address these motivational barriers. His work draws on social psychological theories and adopts a multi-method approach, including experimental designs, longitudinal studies, fieldwork interventions, big-team science, public datasets and computational methods.

Ismaharif’s work has been published in leading journals from diverse disciplines such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Computers in Human Behavior, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Political Psychology, and Human Communication Research. His scholarship has been recognized internationally, including the Top Paper Award from the Intergroup Communication Division (2025) and Mass Communication Division (2020) of the International Communication Association, and the Gene Burd Top Three Paper Award from the Communication Technology Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (2018). His research activities have been supported by various external (e.g., MOE-START Scheme) and internal funding sources (e.g., UCSB Regents Fellowship).

Stephanie Herrera
M.A./Ph.D. Student
Graduate Student Researcher

• stephanie_herrera@ucsb.edu
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Stephanie Herrera is an MA/PhD student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Stephanie earned her B.A. degree in Communication Technology from The Ohio State University. Her interests lie at the intersection of media effects and political communication. Herrera examines how traditional and social media shape individuals’ self-perceptions and intergroup attitudes.

Ying Qi Pan, M.A.
Graduate Student Researcher

• yingqipan@ucsb.edu
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Ying Qi Pan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on political communication, with a particular interest in gender inequalities in online political engagement. Her work explores (1) how individual and contextual factors influence digital political participation, using cross-national datasets, and (2) how the development of artificial intelligence shapes human-technology relations. Her methodological training is primarily quantitative.

Nancy Molina-Rogers, Ph.D.
UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow

• nmolinarogers@g.ucla.edu
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Nancy Molina-Rogers earned both her doctoral and master’s degrees in Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and is a Media MOSAIC Lab alumnus. Her research focuses on the relationship between social media and collective action among marginalized groups, with a particular emphasis on racial and ethnic identity. In her dissertation, she explored how advantaged and disadvantaged groups differ in their perceptions of social media as a tool for group-empowering online activities, such as collective action. As a UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Molina-Rogers is examining media literacy and political participation within the Latino/x/e community. Her work specifically focuses on the role of news consumption on social media platforms.