About me

I’m a media effects researcher and an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky. My research investigates how emotions shape the ways we interact with––and are ultimately influenced by––various types of mediated information. This work is motivated by two fundamental questions: how do the messages we read, watch, and hear on a daily basis make us feel, and how do those feelings shape what we believe and how we behave in response? I’ve explored these questions across a range of contexts––examining, for example, the role that anger plays in facilitating the spread of online health misinformation and how exposure to uncertainty can decrease resistance to persuasive messages about climate change. More recently, I’ve turned my attention to messier, more complex emotions like schadenfreude––or the pleasure we experience in the face of another person’s misfortune––and mixed emotions, in which we perceive conflicting emotions to occur at the same time (e.g., feeling happy and sad).

I completed my Ph.D. in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern University, my M.A. in Communication at Wake Forest University, and my B.A. in Communication Studies at Mercer University.