Overview
Background
I am a linguist specialising in intercultural and public health communication, with a focus on the intersections of language, culture, and migration in healthcare. My research centres on co-designing accessible health communication resources with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities across Asia and Australia. Drawing on linguistic ethnography and co-design approaches, I work to improve community health, infectious disease prevention, and health equity for underserved populations. I am also passionate about collaborating with colleagues across the health and social sciences to address complex public health challenges, and I convene an interdisciplinary health communication research group at the School.
My publications focus on public health communication. A central aim of these publications is to distill complex health communication data into accessible and actionable strategies that deliver tangible benefits to communities and practitioners. In 2025, I published a single-authored book, Health Crisis Communication: Multimodal Classification for Pandemic Preparedness, which examines effective public health communication and offers practical strategies for communicating complex epidemiological concepts to the public.
I am currently leading and collaborating on three major research projects addressing health communication with vulnerable populations across gender, race, migration, and socioeconomic status. These projects aim to develop tailored communication strategies and resources for conveying critical health information effectively.
- I co-create a community health outreach program with Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand.
- I co-lead an international project that examines clinician–patient communication across Australia, Switzerland, and Thailand.
- I lead a travel medicine project in Australia that investigates how health professionals communicate infectious disease risks to vulnerable groups, including children, pregnant women, and older adults with underlying health conditions.
My research has been recognised with several awards, including the 2021 Humanities Travelling Fellowship from the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the 2025 Young Scholar Research Award from the North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association (NATPA), and the 2025 High Distinction Award from the Taiwan Association of Medical History.
I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD, MPhil, and Honours students interested in health discourse, intercultural communication, and migration studies. Please feel free to contact me to discuss potential research projects.
Availability
- Dr Sheng-hsun Lee is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Masters (Coursework), Pennsylvania State University
- Doctor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University
Research interests
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Health Crisis Communication
This project seeks to uncover features of effective communication used by public health officials. These features often include a constellation of language, gestures, placards, and eye gaze to help the public understand pandemic circumstances. The project started with a travel fellowship support from the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2021 to collect the videos of COVID-19 press conferences in Australia and Taiwan. Over the years, my research assistants and I have created a video corpus of COVID-19 press conferences. We have been analyzing the videos to understand the successes and challenges encountered by public health officials in communicating about public health issues.
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Communication about Infection and Immunity
Risk communication is critical to infectious disease prevention. While patients rely on clinicians to weigh risks and benefits when making vaccination decisions, practitioners need effective dialogue strategies to encourage preventive behaviors. However, current guidelines often emphasize what information to convey rather than how to communicate it, leaving practitioners with generic advice. This project analyzes recorded clinical consultations to map the complexity of real-world risk communication and build concrete, adaptable communication toolkits for clinicians. By supplementing these recordings with clinician and patient interviews, we triangulate participant perspectives with actual clinical practices.
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Migrant Health, Equitable Health Communication, Community-Led Public Health
In this DFAT project, I co-design and co-direct a community health outreach program with Myanmar migrant workers in Samut Sakhon, Thailand. Working closely with Associate Professor Kwanchit Sasiwongsaroj and Assistant Professor Narongdej Phanthaphoommee at Mahidol University, alongside the public health team at Samut Sakhon Hospital, I support these workers in accessing crucial health information, particularly regarding vaccine-preventable diseases like pertussis. Our program is community-led and co-designed, drawing on cross-disciplinary support from researchers in cultural studies, translation studies, and health communication.
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Narrative, Rabies, Patient Experiences, Healthcare Barriers
This project aims to collect and analyze the narratives of Australian travelers who received Rabies Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) following overseas travel. The primary objective of this research is to examine the comprehensive travel and treatment experiences of these individuals through semi-structured interviews and a background survey. By analyzing these data, we intend to develop evidence-based communication strategies and educational resources designed to assist travelers in pre-trip planning. These materials will enhance public awareness of rabies risks and emphasize the critical importance of both pre-travel vaccination and immediate post-exposure intervention.
Works
Search Professor Sheng-hsun Lee’s works on UQ eSpace
2025
Book
Health crisis communication: multimodal classification for pandemic preparedness
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2025). Health crisis communication: multimodal classification for pandemic preparedness. New York, NY United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003545002
2024
Conference Publication
Multimodal classification for public health crisis communication
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2024). Multimodal classification for public health crisis communication. The 4th Conference on Discourse, Culture & Interaction, Brisbane, QLD Australia, 5-6 December 2024.
2024
Conference Publication
Reporting the first COVID-19 death: Crisis classification in mobility
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2024). Reporting the first COVID-19 death: Crisis classification in mobility. Sociolinguistics Symposium 25, Perth, WA Australia, 24-27 June 2024.
2024
Journal Article
Crisis classifications in mobility: reporting the first COVID death in Taiwan
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2024). Crisis classifications in mobility: reporting the first COVID death in Taiwan. Discourse Studies, 26 (2), 242-261. doi: 10.1177/14614456231219741
2023
Journal Article
How pandemic detective narratives potentiate and debilitate trust
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2023). How pandemic detective narratives potentiate and debilitate trust. Text and Talk, 44 (6), 809-841. doi: 10.1515/text-2022-0080
2022
Conference Publication
How pandemic detective narratives potentiate and debilitate trust
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2022). How pandemic detective narratives potentiate and debilitate trust. The 9th International Conference on Intercultural Pragmatics and Communication, Brisbane, QLD Australia, 21-23 June 2022.
2022
Journal Article
Enregistering mask-wearing in the time of a public health crisis
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2022). Enregistering mask-wearing in the time of a public health crisis. Language in Society, 52 (3), 1-25. doi: 10.1017/s0047404522000033
2021
Journal Article
Language program reintegration after study abroad: voices of the teacher and classmates at home
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2021). Language program reintegration after study abroad: voices of the teacher and classmates at home. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 7 (1), 60-86. doi: 10.1558/lst.38324
2020
Journal Article
History in person: a longitudinal study of a language learner’s experience at home and abroad
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2020). History in person: a longitudinal study of a language learner’s experience at home and abroad. Applied Linguistics, 42 (4), 692-719. doi: 10.1093/applin/amaa050
2019
Journal Article
How memories of study abroad experience are contextualized in the language classroom
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2019). How memories of study abroad experience are contextualized in the language classroom. Applied Linguistics Review, 13 (4), 1-29. doi: 10.1515/applirev-2019-0020
2019
Journal Article
The dialectical unfolding of paradigmatic and narrative thinking in a Chinese-as-a-foreign-language classroom
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2019). The dialectical unfolding of paradigmatic and narrative thinking in a Chinese-as-a-foreign-language classroom. Classroom Discourse, 11 (4), 1-21. doi: 10.1080/19463014.2019.1633550
2019
Journal Article
The dialects of control and connection in the study abroad homestay
Kinginger, Celeste and Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2019). The dialects of control and connection in the study abroad homestay. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 4 (1), 19-44. doi: 10.1075/sar.17014.kin
2018
Journal Article
Narrative remembering of intercultural encounters: a case study of language program reintegration after study abroad
Lee, Sheng-Hsun and Kininger, Celeste (2018). Narrative remembering of intercultural encounters: a case study of language program reintegration after study abroad. The Modern Language Journal, 102 (3), 578-593. doi: 10.1111/modl.12505
2018
Conference Publication
The dialectics of control and connection in the study abroad homestay
Kinginger, Celeste and Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2018). The dialectics of control and connection in the study abroad homestay. American Association for Applied Lingusitics (AAAL) 2018 Conference, Chicago, IL United States, 24-27 March 2018.
2018
Conference Publication
Learning to eat politely at the Chinese homestay dinner table: Two contrasting case studies
Lee, Sheng-Hsun, Di, Chunyuan and Kinginger, Celeste (2018). Learning to eat politely at the Chinese homestay dinner table: Two contrasting case studies. American Association for Applied Lingusitics (AAAL) 2018 Conference, Chicago, IL United States, 24-27 March 2018.
2018
Book Chapter
Chinese language acquisition in study abroad contexts
Kinginger, Celeste, Wu, Qian and Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2018). Chinese language acquisition in study abroad contexts. The Routledge handbook of Chinese second language acquisition. (pp. 301-317) edited by Chuanren Ke. New York, NY United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315670706
2017
Journal Article
Developing awareness and use of compliments in the Chinese homestay: a longitudinal case study
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2017). Developing awareness and use of compliments in the Chinese homestay: a longitudinal case study. Applied Linguistics Review, 8 (4), 441-467. doi: 10.1515/applirev-2016-1003
2017
Conference Publication
Narrative remembering of intercultural encounters: An activity-theoretic study of language program reintegration after study abroad in China
Lee, Sheng-Hsun (2017). Narrative remembering of intercultural encounters: An activity-theoretic study of language program reintegration after study abroad in China. The 19th International Conference and Workshop on TEFL & Applied Linguistics, Taoyuan, China, 10-11 March 2017.
2017
Journal Article
Learning to eat politely at the Chinese homestay dinner table: two contrasting case studies
Lee, Sheng-Hsun, Wu, Qian, Di, Chunyuan and Kinginger, Celeste (2017). Learning to eat politely at the Chinese homestay dinner table: two contrasting case studies. Foreign Language Annals, 50 (1), 135-158. doi: 10.1111/flan.12244
2016
Journal Article
Contextualized language practices as sites for learning: mealtime talk in short-term Chinese homestays
Kinginger, Celeste, Lee, Sheng-Hsun, Wu, Qian and Tan, Dali (2016). Contextualized language practices as sites for learning: mealtime talk in short-term Chinese homestays. Applied Linguistics, 37 (5), 716-740. doi: 10.1093/applin/amu061
Funding
Current funding
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Sheng-hsun Lee is:
- Available for supervision
Looking for a supervisor? Read our advice on how to choose a supervisor.
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Doctor Philosophy
The cultural and ecological representation in Chinese and Korean language textbooks
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Isaac Lee
Completed supervision
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
A Case Study of Collaborative Writing for L2 English Learners
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Noriko Iwashita
Media
Enquiries
Contact Dr Sheng-hsun Lee directly for media enquiries about:
- Crisis communication
- Intercultural communication
- Public health communication
- Study abroad
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