Hai L. Tran joined DePaul in 2010 after completing his Ph.D. in mass communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in multimedia storytelling, data journalism, online news production, and international reporting. Hai creates experiential, project-based learning opportunities for his students through sustained collaboration with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a D.C.-based bipartisan think tank) in the CSIS Journalism Bootcamp program and with his Global Learning Experience partner from Yonsei University in Seoul.
His research shows an eclectic selection of topics, exploring the science behind communicating with numbers and narratives, multimedia effects, online agenda setting, journalism studies, global press freedom, and research methodology. A recipient of several “top paper" awards, Hai publishes in flagship journals in his field (e.g., Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Media Psychology, Journalism Studies, Journal of Advertising Research) and contributes to other publications by leading international providers of academic content (e.g., "Agenda Setting in a 2.0 World" and "The Routledge Companion to Business Journalism," Routledge; "Encyclopedia of Journalism," SAGE).
Before entering academia, he was in the newsroom for almost a decade, working across platforms as a foreign correspondent, world news editor, sports commentator, TV producer, and guest analyst. His career highlights include reporting 9/11 and the 2000 election deadlock from Washington, D.C., or providing both real-time and post-game analysis of international soccer tournaments in Hanoi.
Hai was born in Vietnam, where he spent the first 28 years of his life imagining numerous likely and unlikely scenarios for a future path. Becoming a media scholar, however, is one thing that never crossed his mind.