Tao Zhang

• Faculty Scholarship and Travel Grant (AY25/26) Duke Kunshan University Awardee, May 2025
• Intersections Research Fellowship Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research, Utah State University Awardee, Oct. 2021
• Graduate and Professional Student Council (GPSC) 2020 Research & Creative Activities Award Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Awardee, Spring 2020

• Zhang, T. (in press). A Silent Farewell: A Dialogue That Has Never Been Made. Journal of Autoethnography. (To be published under a pseudonym. Accepted July 25, 2025)
• Zhang, T. (2021). Undoing the “non’s” within English hegemony: Teaching intercultural communication as a transnational teacher. Communication Education, 70(3), 339-341. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2021.1912792
• Zhang, T. (2021). “Your English is ‘accented!’”: Surviving with otherness while approaching positive becoming. International Review of Qualitative Research, 13(4), 476-496. http://www.doi.org/10.1177/1940844720943510

Essay included in the issue winning the Best Special Journal Issue Award (2022) from the National Communication Association, Ethnography Division. In Alexander, B. K. (2021). Special Issue on “Surviving in/at the Intersections: A Preface for Three Papers on the Matter of Things” (Edited by Bryant Keith Alexander), International Review of Qualitative Research, 13(4), 45

• Atkinson, J., Gjoei, N., Joseph, R., Kamoneto, E., & Zhang, T. (2019). Activist speak at the Republican debates. In J. D. Atkinson & L. J. Kenix (Eds.), Alternative media meets mainstream politics: Activist nation rising (pp. 116-138). Lexington Books. (author names in alphabetical order)
• Ha, L., Jiang, W., Bi, C., Zhang, R., Zhang, T., & Wen, X. (2016). How online usage of subscription-based journalism and mass communication research journal articles predicts citations. Learned Publishing, 29(3), 183-192. http://www.doi.org/10.1002/leap.1036. (2016 Impact Factor: 1.053)
• Ha, L., Yang, C., Fang, L., Zhang, T., Chattopadhyay, D., & Wang, F. (2015). How media scholars’ attributes affect their ratings of journalism and mass communication quarterly. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 92(1), 221-234.

• Zhang, T., Bao, H., & Daddaoui, B. (being polished for submission). Between Homes, On the Borders: A Collaborative Autoethnography on (un) Freedom and Identity. (Being polished for submission to the Journal of Communication Studies by the end of 2025)
• Zhang, T. (under review). Communicating Chineseness Across Borders: Seeking the “Us” in Our Othernesses. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. (Revision to be submitted in Oct. 2025)
• The Imagined and The Lived” Re/Naming, Tourism, and the Identity Performance of Shangri-La Tibetans. Data collection completed in summer 2024.
• A Comparative Study of the Linguistic Landscapes of Kunming, Chengdu, and Shanghai. Data collection to be completed by the end of 2025.
• Citizens on the Borders: Intercultural Communication as Everyday Life. Data collection to be completed in summers of 2026 and 2027.

• NCA Short Course on Transforming Your Qualitative Data into Actionable Insights: Coding Iterative Qualitative Data (PIQDA) National Communication Association, LA, 2024
• NCA Short Course on Teaching Collective Story Harvest as a Research Method Grounded in Indigenous Epistemologies National Communication Association, LA, 2024
• Certificate in Autoethnography, A Qualitative Research Method (Asynchronous) To be taught by Dr. Tony Adams, Bradley University Enrolled, Sept. – Oct. 2024
• VLO (Virtual Learning Opportunity): Great Regard for Early Career Scholars Zoom Event, National Communication Association Attendee, Aug. 30, 2024
• International Forum on Image Studies and Global Communication 2024 Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) Attendee, Jun. 2024
• CSCA Short Course on Intercultural Communication Central State Communication Association Participant, Apr. 2024
• CSCA Short Course on Communication Ethics Central State Communication Association Participant, Apr. 2024
• OPI Training (Oral Proficiency Training) Language and Culture Center, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan Participant, Fall 2023

Duke Kunshan University Kunshan, Jiangsu, China Assistant Professor – July 2023 to the present 

• WOC108 - Intercultural Communication – This course introduces students to and cultivates in them an understanding of intercultural communication and the relationship between communication and culture through narratives and stories. Students also learn key aspects of intercultural communication, including verbal and nonverbal communication, cultural values and norms based on different world views, and how culture is related to our identity. In doing so, they develop beneficial attitudes and fundamental skills for understanding and explaining the reasonableness of other cultures.
• WOC218 - Public Speaking – This course takes advantage of concepts/theories from two primary sources – Rhetoric in Civic Life and Intro to Oral Communication. The former textbook informs us that language is symbolic and matters in our civic engagement. It teaches us how to evaluate rhetoric, become effective rhetors (speakers), and communicate with diverse audiences by using inclusive languages, etc. The latter provides us with hands-on speech-making skills, including generating topics, organizing ideas, formatting a speech outline, using oral citation properly, practicing compassionate listening, etc.
• ARHU101 - To be starting Fall 2025. This course introduces students to the art of interpretation by helping them become more attentive and discerning readers. Instead of treating texts as sources of information alone, we will study them as forms of communication shaped by language, culture, purpose, and audience. We will explore how meaning is constructed and contested, and how readers engage critically with what they read.

Gonzaga University Spokane, WA Lecturer – August 2022 to May 2023 

• COMM100 - Communication and Speech
• COMM193 - Intercultural Communication

Utah State University Logan, Utah Post-doctoral Teaching Fellow – August 2021 to June 2022 

• CMST1330 - Introduction to Global Communication
• CMST3270 - Culture and Public Discourse
• CMST3330 - Intercultural Communication

Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Illinois Graduate Teaching Assistant – instructor of record, Department of Communication Studies, Fall 2016 to Summer 2021 

• CMST101 - Introduction to Oral Communication: Speech, Self, and Society
• CMST301i - Communication Across Cultures (university core course)
• CMST361 - Nonverbal Communication

• Undergraduate Academic Integrity Review Board (UARB) DKU Undergraduate Studies Fall 2024 – Spring 2026
• Advisor for DKU Undergraduate Students DKU Undergraduate Studies Since AY2024
• NCA Interest Group Awards Reviewer Ethnography Division, NCA Jun. 2024 & Jul. 2025
• NCA Conference Paper Reviewer Critical Cultural Studies Division, NCA International and Intercultural Communication Division, NCA Apr. 2024
• Co-Teaching between ICC & CSL with Lianyun Pang LCC, Duke Kunshan University Spring 2024
• Identity Committee (IFWG – Identity Faculty Working Group) DKU Faculty Assembly, Duke Kunshan University Crew Member, since Spring 2024
• Research Talk on “The Necessity and Possibility of Decolonizing the Understanding of Chinese-ness” LCC, Duke Kunshan University Spring 2024
• Video Essay Grading/Interviewing/Essay Grading Chinese Student Recruitment, Duke Kunshan University Spring 2024
• Winter Camp Public Speaking Instructor Graduate Programs and Recruitment, Duke Kunshan University Spring 2024
• Story Circle Language and Culture Center, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan Co-Facilitator, 2023
• WLS Coaching Language and Culture Center, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan WLS Coach, 2nd session, Fall 2023