Research

I’m a PhD candidate in Communication at Stanford University, advised by Professor Nilam Ram and funded by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

My research examines how people act upon dynamic risk communication to protect their well-being during extreme weather events. Leveraging intensive longitudinal methods and community partnerships, I aim to align behind community-led efforts to prepare for, respond to, and recover from extreme weather.

Publications

CommunityCrit

The concept for CommunityCrit, an online tool for participatory urban planning.

CommunityCrit

Public workshop in San Diego to learn about community goals for an intersection called El Nudillo.

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). [link]
Shi, L., Brandt, A. R., Iancu, D., Mach, K. J., Field, C., Cho, M. J., Ng, M., Chey, K.J., Ram, N., Robinson, T., & Reeves, B. (2024). Climate impacts of digital use supply chains. Environmental Research: Climate. [link]
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. [link]
Ng, M., Firth, J., Minen, M., & Torous, J. (2019). User engagement in mental health apps: a review of measurement, reporting, and validity. Psychiatric Services. [link]
Mahyar, N., James, M. R., Ng, M., Wu, R. A., & Dow, S. P. (2018). CommunityCrit: inviting the public to improve and evaluate urban design ideas through micro-activities. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘18). Montreal, Canada. April 2018. [pdf]

Past life

Prior to pursuing a PhD at Stanford, I spent three years working for the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka. Specializing in participatory media around water governance, my work with smallholder farmers highlighted the need for improved communication around weather-related hazards — from tropical cyclones to droughts — and motivated me to return to school.