I am a Professor of Health Communication and the Associate Dean for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama. My research program is dominantly focused on two areas: 1) health communication, health disparities, the characteristics, processes and evolution of online health communities, and the development of health campaigns and interventions; and 2) online interaction across various forms and topics of interest, typically in social media influencers, narrative persuasion, and mediated communication. 

Broadly speaking, I am interested in knowledge sharing and social change to address large societal issues. I often use large web data, network analyses, natural language processing (NLP) and have interests in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in my work. I use multiple research methods in my work: computational methods, network analysis, quantitative and qualitative methods.  

I am housed in the College of Communication & Information Sciences at The University of Alabama (Ph.D., Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University, 2012) and I am a Faculty Fellow at the Alabama Life Research Institute. I currently hold a Reese Phifer Fellowship in the College, which provides funding and support for a long-term research project in health communication.

My work is highly collaborative: I work with the Institute for Communication and Information Research. I am an Affiliate Faculty with the Public Opinion Lab, Affiliate Faculty with the Alabama Water Institute, and the UA Cyber Institute AI/ML Group.  I am affiliated with the Center for Youth Development and Intervention. I am a member of the Alabama Rural Health Association and the International Association for Relationship Research. Professionally, I am active within the Health Communication Division and the Japan-U.S. Communication Association at the National Communication Association, and a member of the International Communication Association in the Health Communication Division and Computational Methods Interest Group.