Liyao Zhao is the Head of Outreach at the Communication Leadership Program. She leads program’s outreach efforts particularly around student recruitment, alumni development and professional partnerships that advance career opportunities for current students and alumni.

Liyao has a BA in Journalism and an MA in International Studies. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Program at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests focus on social media usage in higher education marketing.

Previously she worked for Global Innovation Exchange, which is a new model of experiential education to develop innovation leaders, founded by UW, Microsoft and Tsinghua University in China. She moved to the United States in 2011. Before then, she worked as a journalist for a HongKong TV station in China.

Liyao sees herself as a cross-cultural communicator. She believes communications fill the world, and the world fills communications.

She grew up in Beijing near the Forbidden City, where her dad worked as a history scholar. Her sweet childhood memory was climbing fruit trees, and picking pears and dates outside dad’s office. While not working, she enjoys playing the harmonica. Actually, everyone in her family plays the harmonica. It is a love that ties the family together.

Book a meeting with Liyao about:

• Career resources and opportunities 
• Alumni engagement and professional partnerships 
• Ideas or feedback for career events (First Friday, Lynn Juve’s career workshops, Alumni Fellow workshops, and other network events)