About Me
I am an Assistant Professor of Communication at Western Michigan University, where I teach and research the processes through which people connect, interpret messages, and make sense of the social world.
My work spans levels of human experience—from the biological foundations of emotions like awe, disgust, and anger to the technological frontier of social media influence, parasocial relationships, and deepfake disinformation.
Across these domains, I study how messages, stories, and social signals shape the ways people form beliefs, navigate relationships, and make decisions across political, health, sustainability, and consumer contexts.
How I got here
During my time as an undergraduate, 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 explores our experiences with the news, entertainment, and social media platforms—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. It was this notion that sparked my interest in understanding strategies for more impactful communication.
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.
