CURIOUSLY DOCTORAL

During my undergraduate experience, I struggled to choose between my passions: academia and entertainment. I loved the structure of my university life but also the creative freedom in my entertainment pursuits. Making what I perceived as the less disruptive life decision, I continued on to graduate school. That's where I found the best of both worlds: Media Psychology.

Media psychology is largely concerned with the causes and effects of our interactions with the news, entertainment, social media, and the like—all of which increasingly demand our attention. And, if attention is today's currency, storytelling is king. Good stories win our attention, and the best can influence our emotional states, perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors.

My research explores the persuasive capital of storytelling; sometimes I study how stories can benefit health, environmental, and societal progress, and other times I study how stories—like those which embed misinformation and disinformation—can impede such progress.