I’m an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky and the Co-Director of the Center of Media Psychology & Social Influence at Northwestern University. 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 instance, the role that anger plays in facilitating the spread of online health misinformation and whether acknowledging uncertainty can reduce defensiveness toward science communication. More recently, I’ve turned my attention to the effects of messier, more complex emotional experiences like schadenfreude—or the pleasure we experience in the face of another person’s misfortune—and mixed emotions, in which we perceive several 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.