About

Sora Shin, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Neurobiology Research within the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on understanding the role of brain circuit-specific mechanisms using translationally relevant animal models of stress-induced psychiatric diseases. Her work seeks to answer how early life stress and adverse environments affect mental health in adulthood, how unfulfilled needs in early life are stored and transduced into behavioral dysfunctions over time, and what processes link stress experiences to symptoms of eating disorders or major depression later in life. Dr. Shin earned her PhD in Medical Science from Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea, in 2014, and her M.S. in Physiology from Sungkyunkwan University College of Medicine in 2007. Her academic and research experience includes postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, and her current role at Virginia Tech since February 2020. Her research has been recognized with several awards, including the Seale Innovation Fund Award and NIH-funded projects. Her work involves investigating neural circuits related to stress, overeating, and social dysfunction, with a particular interest in how early adversity remodels brain circuits to influence behavior.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Social Science
• Business
• Sociology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Marketing
• Political Science
• Geography
• Advertising
• Physics
• Computer vision
• Knowledge management
• Psychology
• Food science

Selected publications

• Enhancing the Authenticity of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Designed Souvenirs

  Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research · 2025-09-30 · 3 citations

  article

  As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to play a growing role in souvenir design, concerns about the authenticity of AI-designed souvenirs remain a challenge in the hospitality and tourism industry. This research investigates the impact of AI-designed souvenirs, particularly focusing on art-infused ones, and on the perceived authenticity of souvenirs and purchase intention. Across two preliminary and four experimental studies, the findings demonstrate that AI-designed souvenirs are perceived as less authentic and desirable than human-designed ones. However, strategic interventions, including verification and time scarcity cues, can enhance perceived authenticity and consumer’ willingness to purchase AI-designed souvenirs. This research contributes to the understanding of authenticity in AI-designed products and offers strategies to mitigate consumer’ skepticism of AI-designed products in the hospitality and tourism context.

  PublisherDOI

• AI-powered smart tourism 2.0: A 10-year retrospective and updated model

  Electronic Markets · 2025-12-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract This paper revisits the publication “Smart Tourism: Foundations and Developments” published in Electronic Markets in 2015, which presented a data-centric definition of smart tourism and a foundational model of smart tourism layers and components. Recognizing the dramatic evolution of smart technologies over the past decade, the extensive digital transformation of tourism accelerated by the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Artificial Intelligence revolution fueled by large language models, and the continuing efforts to advance the Metaverse, the paper is a 10-year retrospective and incorporates recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and Metaverse technologies, resulting in an updated “AI-powered smart tourism 2.0” model. The new framework bridges past insights with future possibilities and reflects on emerging smart tourism experiences, smart tourism industry practices, and governance approaches. It thus offers an updated vision for smart tourism to guide future research, policymaking, and industry innovation in an era of extremely rapid and profound technological changes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Development and Validation of a Finite Element Model for Seismically Vulnerable RC Frames With Bond-Slip Effect

  Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea · 2025-05-30

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Satiation of generative AI images

  Annals of Tourism Research · 2025-10-31

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• From Onstage to Onboard: How Online Engagement Mediates the Impact of K-Pop Artists on Tourism Demand

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Strain-Enabled Band Structure Engineering in Layered PtSe₂ for Water Electrolysis under Ultralow Overpotential

  ACS Nano · 2025-02-26 · 6 citations

  article

  This paper describes a simple design methodology to develop layered PtSe2 catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in water electrolysis operating under ultralow overpotentials. This approach relies on the transfer of mechanically exfoliated PtSe2 flakes to gold thin films on prestrained thermoplastic substrates. By relieving the prestrain, a tunable level of uniaxial internal compressive and tensile strain is developed in the flakes as a result of spontaneously formed surface wrinkles, giving rise to band structure modulations with overlapped values of the valence band maximum and conduction band minimum. This strain-engineered PtSe2 with an optimized level of internal tensile strain amplifies the HER performance of the PtSe2, with performance far greater than that of pure platinum due to significantly reduced charge transfer resistance. Density functional theory calculations provide fundamental insight into how strain-induced band structure engineering correlates with the promoted HER activity, especially at the atomic edge sites of the materials.

  PublisherDOI

• Transformative Social Innovation: A Propositional Framework for Tourism-Dependent Communities

  Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research · 2025-11-07

  article

  Existing hospitality and tourism research has focused on internal stakeholders (e.g., employees) when addressing the social pillar of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework, but external stakeholder perspectives remain underexplored. This conceptual paper fills that gap in the literature by developing a propositional framework on strategies to foster hospitality and tourism firms’ social innovation with their key external stakeholder, local communities. Specifically, the propositional framework identifies transformational community engagement as the most effective strategy for achieving transformative social innovation, mediated by three social capital dimensions: social relations, embedded resources, and collective actions. The paper also presents real-world examples from all-inclusive resorts in Small Island Developing States to support its framework. Ultimately, this research advances understanding of ESG’s social pillar and offers guidance for future studies and policy development in tourism-dependent communities.

  PublisherDOI

• Efficient and Stable Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution from MoTe _<i>x</i> /Ni(OH) ₂ Heterostructures

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-10-23 · 1 citations

  article

  . Both machine-learning potential and density functional theory calculations searched and evaluated all atomic sites for this materials system, thus revealing the enhancement mechanisms of OER via four-electron transfer processes with lowered free energy barriers in the rate-determining steps.

  PublisherDOI

• Enotourist satisfaction: A multidimensional approach

  Tourism Economics · 2025-04-22 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study aims to analyze the dimensions that determine an enotourist’s experience when (s)he visits wineries. In addition, in a novel approach, this work examines the influence of wine routes on this experience. On the basis of a set of reviews posted by wine tourists on TripAdvisor, Latent Dirichlet Allocation analysis is conducted to identify the dimensions that determine the wine tourism experience. Subsequently, ordinal logistic regression analysis is performed to identify the most determinant dimensions of visitors’ assessments of their experiences and the influence of wine routes. Results indicate that the “staff” dimension, associated with the treatment provided by tour guides, is the most determinant dimension. In addition, significant differences are observed in the assessment of attributes across the different wine routes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Can nearby high-quality restaurants increase other tourism firms’ performance? Evidence from hotels

  International Journal of Hospitality Management · 2025-07-15

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Chulmo Koo

  24 shared

• Namho Chung

  Kyung Hee University

  14 shared

• Byeong‐hee Roh

  Ajou University

  11 shared

• Seung-Kyu Park

  11 shared

• JooYoung Seo

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  10 shared

• Jungkeun Kim

  Auckland University of Technology

  9 shared

• Zheng Xiang

  Virginia Tech

  8 shared

• Gihun Joo

  8 shared

Labs

• The Shin LabPI

Education

• Doctoral degree, Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management

  Virginia Tech

  2021

• Master's degree, Convention Management

  Kyung Hee University

  2016

• Bachelor's degree, Hotel Management

  Kyung Hee University

  2014

Awards & honors

• Seale Innovation Fund Award (2023-2024)
• R01DK132566-01 (2022-2027)
• University of Virginia/NIH CTSA Pilot Studies Program Award…
• Mentoring Grant, Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and E…
• Integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virgin…