Natalie Ngai, Santa Monica Beach, May 2026, oil on canvas, 10 in. x 10 in., Santa Monica, private collection

Natalie Ngai, Ph.D.

Researcher • Writer • Artist

Dr. Natalie Ngai is a Hong Kong-born, Los Angeles-based cultural theorist and painter. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Media from the University of Michigan and an MPhil in Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge. She is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Previously, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston College.

Dr. Ngai’s writing and art examine aesthetics and emotion across East Asian and Anglo-American contexts. She is currently developing a book on cuteness in media culture alongside an art collection of “cute” objects.

🥇Writing Accolades

2024 Popular Culture Association (PCA) Kathy Merlock Jackson Dissertation Award
2024 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Cultural Critical Studies Division Dissertation Award
Honorable Mention for the 2024 Timothy Shary Award for Best Essay in Children’s and Youth Media Studies at Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)
2022 British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Best Essay by a Doctoral Student Award
2022 SCMS Fan and Audiences Studies Graduate Student Paper Award
2022 AEJMC Entertainment Studies Interest Group Top Student Paper Award and Anne Cooper-Chen Research Award
2022 University of Michigan Department of Communication and Media Graduate Student Diversity Research Award

Natalie Ngai, Lucky Cat, April 2026, oil on cotton, 9 in. x 12 in., Santa Monica, private collection

Contact

Email: drnataliengai@gmail.com Instagram: @writedangerously

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse