Career

I’m an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Montana. My research and teaching focus is interpersonal health communication, and I am particularly interested in how people communicatively manage illness identity, how individuals seek and offer social support, and how people choose to disclose health-related information. I’m a pragmatist, choosing the theory and paradigm based on the question at hand, and a mixed-methods scholar. I have researched contexts such as infertility, mental health, and chronic pain.

Before I entered Academia, I worked as a small-town and suburban newspaper reporter and editor, a magazine editor, a corporate communications manager, and an internal communications consultant.

Education

University of Texas at Austin (2019-2020): Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Health Communication

University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2019): Ph.D., Communication Studies, specialization in Interpersonal Health Communication

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (2015): M.A. Strategic Comm.

Minnesota State University, Moorhead (2003): B.A. Mass Comm, specialization in Print Journalism