Zitao Zhou (TAO) is a researcher and digital media artist.
- Doctoral researcher in Creative Arts, funded by InterAct Network (Loughborough University)
- Master of Arts in Digital Media Production (University College London)
- Bachelor of Arts in Communication (Cinema and Television) (Hong Kong Baptist University)
With a rich background in film, animation, and game creation, she views diverse media as pathways for exploring the world and generating knowledge—ultimately in service of understanding humanity and our relationship with nature.
Prior to her doctoral research at Loughborough University, she worked across roles including short film and advertisement producer, director, and copywriter at leading technology and media companies such as Tencent, ByteDance, NetEase, and GIMC. These experiences laid a strong foundation in audio-visual storytelling and cross-media communication, which continue to inform her research and creative practice.
Alongside her professional work, she has actively contributed to community-based initiatives through her creative skills—for example, assisting with workshops in China that taught photography and painting to deaf children. She also served as Content Director for a TEDx event, curating talks from cross-disciplinary speakers focused on women’s physical and mental health.
Her work is grounded in the philosophy of the unity of knowledge and action, where intellectual inquiry and embodied practice are inseparable. She adopts a practice-based research approach, using creative production—such as films, animations, and games—as a method for generating new knowledge. In tandem, she draws on principles of participatory action research, co-creating with participants to identify issues, produce art collaboratively, and foster both critical reflection and social engagement.
Zitao Zhou’s PhD research, fully funded by the InterAct Network, explores digital storytelling as a method for examining inclusivity in the manufacturing industry through an intersectional gender lens. She combines multimodal creative practice with social inquiry to uncover the lived experiences of professional women working in industrial contexts.
She is currently collaborating with participants from the UK manufacturing sector to co-create short documentary films and generative AI-supported narrative works. These stories reveal how technological transformation intersects with vulnerability, resilience, care, and inclusive practices embedded in everyday life.
Zitao’s research approach integrates practice-based methods with the principles of participatory action research. Rather than positioning participants as research subjects, she invites them into collaborative storytelling processes where co-creation becomes both a method of inquiry and a form of social engagement. Her recent work focuses on the embodied experiences of women in manufacturing, including motherhood, disability, more-than-human support networks, and community care as a foundation for individual resilience.
Her research has been featured at both the 11th and 12th International Digital Storytelling Conferences, highlighting its contribution to global conversations on inclusive media and participatory practice.
She believes that everyone encounters moments of vulnerability—whether through illness, discrimination, personal hardship, or simply the passage of time. What matters is how we respond: by recognising that inclusion means different things to different people, and by building systems that support those who fall—so they may rise again with dignity and strength.
For her, building inclusivity means weaving a safety net—not to erase differences, but to hold them with care. Her work is ultimately about making space: for stories, for listening, and for futures that can hold us all.