Michelle Ng

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Michelle Ng

PhD Candidate | Dual Masters

Department of Communication

Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources

Stanford University

Michelle Ng (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Communication and dual Master’s student in Environment and Resources. Her research examines the psychological, behavioral, and experiential dynamics of people who are exposed to climate hazards – with a focus on improving risk communication. By leveraging intensive longitudinal methods (e.g., experience sampling, mobile sensing) and community-based participatory research, Michelle aims to align behind community-led efforts to promote wellbeing in climate frontline communities. Her work is funded by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Prior to Stanford, Michelle worked for the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka. While conducting fieldwork in Ghana, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, and South Africa, she collaborated with smallholder farmers – as well as partners from government ministries, UN agencies, and community-based organizations – to promote more equitable water governance. Michelle received her BA in Visual and Environmental Studies and Computer Science from Harvard University.

Publications

Ng, M., Gerstorf, D., Conroy, D. E., Pincus, A. L., & Ram, N. (2024). Affective Sensitivity to Air Pollution (ASAP): Person-specific associations between daily air pollution and affective states. PLOS ONE, 19(8), e0307430. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307430

Ng, M. (2024, June 20). We need to take care of each other”: Individuals’ real-time engagements with climate risk communication during the 2021 Texas winter storm. PhD Mentoring Workshop of the Environmental Communication Division. International Communication Association, Gold Coast, Australia.

Ng, M., Gerstorf, D., Conroy, D. E., Pincus, A. L., & Ram, N. (2023, June). Affective sensitivity to air pollution (ASAP): person-specific associations between daily air pollution and affective states. International Conference on Environmental Psychology, Aarhus, Denmark.

Ng, M., Cho, M.-J., Eichstaedt, J., Reeves, B., Robinson, T., & Ram, N. (2023, May). Characterizing “bottom-up” engagement with climate communication with mobile sensing. 73nd Annual International Communication Association (ICA) Conference, Toronto, Canada.

Ng, M., Cho, M.-J., Eichstaedt, J., Reeves, B., Robinson, T., & Ram, N. (2023, April). Leveraging mobile sensing to characterize person-specific engagement with climate communication. Stanford Data Science for Sustainability Conference, Stanford, California, USA.

Ng, M., Chi, Y., Cerit, M., Ram, N., & Harari, G. (2023, March). Change in affect as individuals move through physical and digital environments of daily life. Society for Affective Science’s 2023 Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California, USA.

Pellitier, P. T., Ng, M., Castaneda, S. R., Moser, S. C., & Wray, B. D. (2023). Embracing climate emotions to advance higher education. Nature Climate Change, 13(11), 1148–1150. https://ideas.repec.org//a/nat/natcli/v13y2023i11d10.1038_s41558-023-01838-7.html

Ng, M., Suhardiman, D., Langan, S., Merrey, D., & Karki, E. (2022, May). Contesting hydropower narratives in Nepal: disjunctures between academic literature and community perspectives. 72nd Annual International Communication Association (ICA) Conference, Paris, France.

Ng, M., & Ram, N. (2022, March). Affective sensitivity to air quality: person-specific correlations between air quality and affective states. Society for Affective Science’s 2022 Annual Meeting, Virtual.

Torous, J., Lipschitz, J., Ng, M., & Firth, J. (2020). Dropout rates in clinical trials of smartphone apps for depressive symptoms: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 263, 413–419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.11.167

Ng, M. M., Firth, J., Minen, M., & Torous, J. (2019). User Engagement in Mental Health Apps: A Review of Measurement, Reporting, and Validity. Psychiatric Services, 70(7), 538–544. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201800519

Mahyar, N., James, M. R., Ng, M. M., Wu, R. A., & Dow, S. P. (2018). CommunityCrit: Inviting the Public to Improve and Evaluate Urban Design Ideas through Micro-Activities. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173769

News & Updates

Affective Sensitivity to Air Pollution (ASAP): Person-specific associations between daily air pollution and affective states

Individuals’ sensitivity to climate hazards is a central component of their vulnerability to climate change. In this paper, we introduce and outline the utility of a new intraindividual variability construct, affective sensitivity to air pollution (ASAP)...

Climate Impacts of Digital Use Supply Chains

Information and communications technology (ICT) has become an indispensable part of our lives. Prior research on climate impact of ICT devices and services mostly makes use of life cycle assessment and energy modeling frameworks focused on embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The Change Lab Goes To The Affective Science Annual Conference 2023 in Long Beach, CA

Developmental Change in Infants’ Emotion Regulation Readiness and Regulation Proclivity; Tracking Divergence of Well-Being across Time; and Change in Affect as Individuals Move Through Physical and Digital Green Space in Everyday Life.