Professor May O. Lwin
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Address:
31 Nanyang Link, WKWSCI Bldg
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore 637718
Office Phone: (65) 6790-6669
Fax: (65) 6792-4329
E-mail: tmaylwin@ntu.edu.sg
ABOUT
May Lwin is the Chair and President’s Chair Professor of Communication Studies at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). She also serves as Joint Professor in the NTU LKC School of Medicine, advisor to the NTU-University Scholars Programme and has just completed her term as an honorary Asia Scholar Professor at the University of Melbourne. She has previously been a visiting fellow at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania as a recipient of the Fulbright ASEAN scholar award. May is a Fellow of the International Communication Association. Amongst the awards she has received are Public Administration Medal Silver Award from the President of Singapore, Ogilvy Foundation Award for Academic Leadership and the 2019 Outstanding Applied Communication Scholar Award by the International Communication Association (ICA).
May specializes in strategic communication and health communication. Her current research projects involve the utilization, design and assessment of digitally mediated health communication systems and social media to improve public health. Her research on technology use in promoting physical activity and nutrition education amongst children are being piloted in many schools, while her work on mobile media use for infectious diseases has been piloted in hospitals in Singapore and regional countries such as Sri Lanka. May is currently an advisor with National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID), leading research programmes on COVID-19 infodemic and studying its effects on various population groups, including migrant and vulnerable communities. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed papers, books and book chapters, many of which have received awards. May is also an expert on cyber safety, parental mediation and privacy issues regarding children’s use of technology. May has won several research grants from organizations like Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, the Skoll Foundation, the Tides Foundation and the Media Development Authority.
PUBLICATIONS AND TEACHING
May has published 170+ articles in top-tier communication journals such as Journal of Communication, Communication Research, New Media & Society, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Health Communication, Journal of Advertising and Journal of Public Health, as well as journals in other disciplines such as the American Journal of Public Health, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition, and Physical Activity, and Bulletin of the World Health Organization. She has given keynote speeches and other invited talks on health communication at institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO), Asia-Europe Foundation, Institute of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology, STEP Regional Affairs Dialogue, and many more.
Within the field of education, May has been an advisor for a large number of PhD, masters and honors theses. Many of her graduate students have gone on to successful academic, public and private sector careers. Besides these, she has pioneered a number of graduate and undergraduate educational offerings including International Strategic Communication Management Programme which involved advanced strategic communication experiential learning opportunities in Turkey, South Africa, Japan, Sri Lanka and Spain, as well as an undergraduate module on Fieldwork & Documentation where students travel to regional countries like Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to undertake fieldwork to study local community issues in Environment, Sustainability and Cultural spaces.
SERVICE AND PASSIONS
May serves on the advisory board for Women@NTU which promotes women’s representation in academia, science and technology. She is currently a visiting advisor to the National Center for Infectious Diseases. May is an active volunteer, serving on Singapore Together Alliance for Action (AfA) to Tackle Online Harms, especially those targeted at Women and Girls (the Sunlight AfA), the Board of Directors at the Singapore Heart Foundation and assisting with health interventions in developing countries. As part of the sports fraternity, she represented Team Singapore from 1990 to 2000 as an athlete, serves on the Women in Sport Committee, and is an international judge in water skiing. She serves on the DC Health Communication Conference Advisory Board and National Pandemic Preparedness Research Committee, and has previously served as a Senior Fellow with the Asian Consumer Insights Institute and on the Media Literacy Council.
May enjoys working closely with multidisciplinary teams towards a common vision of improving society, while building positive relationships with faculty members, staff and students. She aims to provide strong leadership to tackle complex challenges and steer her teams towards achieving further excellence within supportive and inclusive environments.
