Moody College of Communication Students

Name: Jisoo Ahn
E-mail: ahn_j@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Advertising and Public Relations
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests:Jisoo’s research is focused on health communication; specifically, health intervention and public health policy.
Her primary interest is to understand how to use communication strategically and effectively in health care and health promotion activities. In previous research efforts, she has examined influential components for public health campaign messages. From her research, she would like to convey public health policy correctly and tactfully to the public.
Other research interests include interpersonal communication between doctor and patient related to the concept of “face.” Deception in health care is her most recent topic of interest.

Name: Lindsay Chilek
E-mail: Lindsay.chilek@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Advertising and Public Relations
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My current research interests surround public interest communications, particularly involving public health, environmental and pro-social marketing contexts. From the communications perspective, I am interested in understanding the factors that influence how people interpret health and pro-social messages including message specific components and components related to how individuals process the message. On the individual level, I am also interested in understanding how culture, social norms and moral foundations can encourage or inhibit health behaviors and pro-social product consumption. On the group level, I am also interested in understanding how social norms develop and the role they play in impacting change. I have a MS in statistics, so I enjoy quantitative data analysis, but am open to investigations utilizing qualitative methods as well.

Name: Brittani Crook
E-mail: brittani@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Communication Studies
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research focuses on how people communicatively cope with and manage health stressors. Currently I have three main bodies of research within health communication: young adults with cancer, weight management, and drug misuse and abuse. I have explored how young adults with cancer seek support and manage uncertainty within online and face-to-face support communities. I am interested in further exploring the role of topic avoidance and confirmation in these conversations. Secondly, I have explored how romantic partners communicate support when one partner is seeking to actively manage their weight. I am interested in further exploring the role personal and relational factors that predict the detection of weight management related goals communicated through memorable messages by a romantic partner. Finally, I have examined messages shared by undergraduates about prescription stimulant misuse. I am extending this research to investigate how conversational features predict intention to use or misuse of prescription stimulants among undergraduates.

Name: Kristen Farris
E-mail: klfarris@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Communication Studies
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research interests center on how individuals use communication to cope with and manage health-related issues. I have conducted research in the area of infertility and miscarriage and am beginning a line of research examining chronic, invisible illnesses (such as mental health and chronic fatigue related illnesses). Specifically, I am interested in how communication surrounding these health issues influences both relational and health outcomes. I have conducted research using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and am open to other areas of health communication research.

Name: Victor Garcia
E-mail: victorga@utexas.edu
Home Department: School of Journalism
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a second-year Ph.D. student. One of my research interests focuses on how mental health media coverage could influence people’s perceptions, believes and behaviors. In recent projects, I have aimed to understand how media reporting could either lead to the stigmatization of mentally ill people or help societies to understand accurately these issues. The way journalists cover mental distress could have a significant impact on the development of public policies and services. My interest in these topics increased in 2012 when the Carter Center (Atlanta) selected me as the Colombian administrator of the Rosalyn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. I have been using framing as a theory and content analysis as method, but I am open to investigate using different approaches. I continue struggling whit stats so support on data analysis will be welcomed.
 

Name: Elizabeth Glowacki
E-mail: glowacki@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Communication Studies
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research focuses on how individuals within relationships communicate about such health issues as weight management, smoking, and drinking. I recently utilized Inconsistent Nurturing as Control Theory to examine the behaviors romantic partners enact when communicating about drinking. I have also done work with provider-patient communication and am hoping to become more involved with provider-patient studies. Currently, I am looking at physical activity in terms of how it affects cognitive performance and the ways in which physical activity can be promoted in and out of the classroom.

Name: Mackenzie Greenwell
E-mail: mackenzie.greenwell@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Communication Studies
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a first-year doctoral student whose research interests involve couple and family communication about mental health issues, including disclosure choices, supportive communication, and destigmatization of persons with mental health disorders. I am also interested in exploring the relationships between mental, physical, and relational health and communicating gratitude and positivity.
 

Name: JhuCin (Rita) Jhang
E-mail: ritajhang@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Communication Studies
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research interests involve promoting the mental health outcomes of vulnerable groups of people, such as abused children and those in the LGBTQ community. I am interested in studying how people use different methods of communication to identify and cope with life stressors, how topic avoidance is used and its influences in these populations, and how stereotype threats affect their health-related communication choices. I am also interested in exploring how conflict management styles, as well as supportive communication from internal sources (e.g. close friends and family) and external source (counselors and social worker), predict mental health outcomes. I am open to any research ideas.
 

Name: Danielle Kilgo
E-mail: daniellekilgo@utexas.edu
Home Department: School of Journalism
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: In general, my research interests include how online communication is interpreted and used by underrepresented populations in society. Broadly, I focus on facets of online communication, discourse, and minority or underrepresented populations. In terms of health communication, I am interested in exploring the uses and gratifications of gaming and social networking activity of youth and young adults with physical disabilities and/or diseases. While researchers have often reported that offline communication and relationship building is difficult for handicapped youth, online socialization and communication offers this population a unique set of opportunities that pertain health, work and leisure. Additionally, I am interested in discourse, specifically visual discourse, as it appears in online environments. Methodologically, I focus on both qualitative and quantitative work.
 

Name: Hye Seung Koh
E-mail: kohhye@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Advertising and Public Relations
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research focuses on exploring the cognitive and affective mechanisms of people’s information processing and decision making regarding health- and environment-related behaviors. Currently, I am working on exploring the roles of prior recycling behavior and emotions in the relationship between social norms message and intention to recycle. Also, I am investigating the effect of media messages on developing children’s world views and health-related activities depending on the roles of perceived social norms and aroused emotions. I am also interested in exploring the effect of different cultures on people’s risk perception and shaping healthy behavior such as the effect of a culturally tailored message on audiences’ perception, attitude, and behavior. I believe there is a positive effect of media literacy and health literacy on people’s physical and emotional well-being.

Name: Seungae (Suzy) Lee
E-mail: ckatovk@hotmail.com
Home Department: Department of Advertising and Public Relations
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am interested in how message frames and emotional appeals influence people’s information processing. I am particularly interested in negativity such as negative emotional appeals and threatening messages. Currently, I am studying how such negative messages can facilitate or impede message elaboration in physical activity promotion advertising.

Name: Shuning Lu
E-mail: shuninglu@utexas.edu
Home Department: School of Journalism
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research interest centers on media representation, media effect and public opinion. In the field of health communication, I am interested in media performance in informing public of health messages, representing health related issues and also in shaping perceptions and behaviors as well as social relations in the medical practice. One of my past studies examined media performance in a medical incident in China and found that the press, by packaging inaccurate information with imbalanced sources in a sensational manner, fail to achieve objective journalism as a whole and also have the potential to intensify physician-patient relationship. I am seeking collaboration which will enable me to further my understanding of how general public especially physicians perceive the performance of journalists in medical news reporting, the medical news production and diffusion process, and the effect of the news reports on the general public and also physician-patient relationship.

Name: Amanda Mabry
E-mail: amabry@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Advertising and Public Relations
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research focuses on exploring the role social and cultural norms play on health related behaviors and how mass mediated persuasive messages interact with perceived norms to influence attitudes and behaviors. Currently, I am most interested in exploring these constructs in relation to gender stereotypes, cultural conceptions of masculinity and femininity, and how these broad cultural norms contribute to the prevalence of sexual violence. Taking a public health approach, I am also interested in studying mass communication approaches to preventing sexual violence.

Name: Paro Pain
E-mail: paromita.pain@gmail.com
Home Department: School of Journalism
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am interested in the health information related knowledge gaps that exist within communities. Communication processes in resource poor groups are an inspiration and I always try to ensure that my research has practical and immediate implications for the populations under study. A long range project I am working on involves adapting existing materials on autism in the US for audiences in India. This project has done qualitative interviews with over 60 people to examine if the adaptation is effective and what other changes will make the material more relevant. Making healthcare information culturally sensitive and ensuring that resource poor communities have access to easy to understand health information are a passion. Recently I have started examining how low cost technologies impact healthcare in developing countries. My methods usually use a mix of qualitative and quantitative techniques.

Name: Emily Scheinfeld
E-mail: enscheinfeld@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Communication Studies
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I study family and health communication; more specifically parent-child communication in the context of healthy behaviors in young or emerging adults. Primarily, I have examined the role of parent-child communication during childhood, and how it influenced young adults to make healthy decisions pertaining to food and physical activity in a university setting. I hope to extend this research, and possibly also look at how families talk about other health behaviors during emerging adulthood, including sexual activity, STI and pregnancy prevention, alcohol consumption, drug use, weight management, sleep behaviors, etc.

Name: Melissa Suran
E-mail: mnsuran@u.northwestern.edu
Home Department: School of Journalism
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: Suran’s research focuses on health journalism, social-news sites, and media law and ethics. She is primarily interested in the analysis of news framing and media agenda-setting. Much of her recent work concerns reader responses to health news and whether framing or topic is more indicative of idiosyncratic comments. Suran is also interested in how public opinion of a topic changes over time as the topic’s attribute coverage changes as well. She is currently researching such effects in relation to HIV/AIDS and smoking/lung cancer.

Name: Yaguang Zhu
E-mail: yaguang.zhu@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Communication Studies
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research interests can be classified in the intersection between organizational communication and health communication. ​ ​I am predominantly concerned with using multiple communication technologies in examining workplace health promotion, health message design and effects, emergencies, and risk perception. ​ ​On the organizational level, I have explored how organizational identification, workplace relationships, message reception, and communication technology use come to influence a range of employer-sponsored​ wellness​ initiatives include promoting healthy behaviors, creating supportive environments​, and enabling employees to increase control over, and to improve, their optimal health. ​ ​On the individual level, I have examined how social media use can influence adolescent and young adult smoking behaviors. I always welcome a good research chat or collaboration, so feel free to contact me.

Name: Su Zhaohui
E-mail: szh@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Advertising and Public Relations
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: Su's primary research focuses on cancer studies, health literacy, e-Health, health promotion, health literacy, culture, branding, and information processing. She is interested in how to effectively and efficiently sending the right health messages to the right target audience, so that their attitudes and behaviors toward health can be restyled in the promising direction; their health literacy could be improved and consequently, they could have a better health. In conjunction, she is also interested in culture studies, brand analyses, and how information is being processed via kaleidoscopic communication venues.

College of Pharmacy

Name: Chib Amuneke-Nze
E-mail: chib.amuneke-nze@utexas.edu
Home Department:Division of Health Outcomes and Pharmacy Practice
Degree Program: PharmD
Research Interests: I am a 3rd year doctoral student with published work in chemistry and genetic research. My research interests now focuses in the area of pharmacy driven health behavior change among male patients. Currently, my research centers on Minority Men’s Health disparities, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. I have examined factors associated with health management and medication adherence perceptions from African American men in the low-income area of East Austin. Overall, I hope to investigate the impact of pharmacist consultation, such as medication therapy management, on male obesity and health management. I am also interested in the effect of health care messages on the mentality and attitudes present in male ideology which promote poor health outcomes in men.

Name: Tatiana Makhinova
E-mail: tatianam@utexas.edu
Home Department:Division of Health Outcomes and Pharmacy Practice
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a fifth year doctoral student with prior experience in the pharmaceutical industry. My research interests center in the area of health behavior change among patients with chronic illnesses. I have examined factors associated with medication adherence and its effect on health care utilization among patients with asthma. Currently I am investigating the impact of pharmacy services on adherence improvement. I am also interested in the area of integrative medicine approach, where the disease management emphasizes the patient-physician partnership and highly depends on their communication.

Name: Onyinye Nduaguba
E-mail: onduaguba@utexas.edu
Home Department:Division of Health Outcomes and Pharmacy Practice
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am interested in research that is tailored towards modifying human behaviour based on evidence that the change will result in a desired outcome.

Name: Motolani E. Ogunsanya
E-mail: tmadedipe@utexas.edu
Home Department: Division of Health Outcomes and Pharmacy Practice
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: Motolani Ogunsanya, B.Pharm, M.Sc., is a third-year doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy. Her research interests focus on primary prevention, health disparities among minorities, healthcare utilization, and patient-reported outcomes. The primary emphasis of her work to date has been tobacco use prevention, medication adherence in HIV/AIDs and prostate cancer screening among African American men. I tend to work with both qualitative and quantitative research designs!

College of Education

Name: Ana Laura Herrera
E-mail: analauraherrera@utexas.edu <
Home Department: Kinesiology and Health Education
Degree Program: PhD, 1st year
Research Interests: My current research interests include a wide variety of topics but mainly center around racial/ethnic health disparities and social determinants of health. I am interested in examining how social media (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) use influences perceived body image and health behavior, specifically physical activity and nutrition behaviors. I would like to explore how sociocultural factors influence patterns for social media use and the extent of social support for social media use among racial/ethnic groups.

Name: Alejandra Fernandez
E-mail: alejandra.fernandez@utexas.edu
Home Department: Kinesiology and Health Education
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research interests center around minority health disparities. Specifically, I am interested in the Hispanic population and the effects culture has on this population's health behaviors. My past research has focused on predictors of negative health outcomes, such as discrimination and its association with depressive symptoms. Currently, I'm working on exploring the relationship between peer victimization and negative internalizing and externalizing health outcomes among adolescents. Although my research is slightly specific, I am open to working with anyone that has general minority health research interests.

Name: Marissa C. Knox
E-mail: mcknox@utexas.edu
Home Department: Department of Educational Psychology
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a 3rd year doctoral student in Human Development, Culture, and Learning Sciences. My research focuses on the relationships among self-compassion, psychological well-being, and healthy body image. I want to explore how various self-compassionate practices promote body acceptance and body appreciation. Currently, I am working on a study to see if self-compassion mitigates the negative effect of social comparison on body image. I am also interested in the application of self-compassion and mindfulness in educational and clinical settings.

Name: Matt Lehrer
E-mail: mlehrer@utexas.edu
Home Department: Kinesiology and Health Education
Degree Program: MS
Research Interests: I am interested in stress and carbohydrate metabolism, specifically the relationship between the stress hormone cortisol and blood glucose. My current research looks at how various mental health indicators (perceived stress, resilience, sense of control, and depressive symptoms) affect physiological stress (cortisol) and blood glucose in African-Americans in the Austin community.

Name: Xiaoyin Li
E-mail: lixiaoyin@utexas.edu
Home Department: Kinesiology and Health Education
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am interested in studying the role of health communications in preventing risky behaviors especially excessive alcohol use, tobacco use, and injury among adolescents and young adults. I am also interested in studying psycho-social determinants of depression across the lifespan. Another research interest is using health communication to promote physical activities.

Name: Ariana C Vasquez
E-mail: a.c.vasquez@utmerg.com
Home Department: Department of Educational Psychology
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am 5th year doctoral student in the Human Development, Culture, and Learning Sciences. Broadly speaking I am a motivation researcher. Overall my research interests include parental and teacher autonomy support and it's impact on student's motivation, psychological well-being, and achievement. In addition, my dissertation is looking at the relationship between psychological and physical health through the lens of Self-Determination Theory. I am very interested in how daily well-being is influenced by daily health practices.

Name: Teresa Vogt
E-mail: tvogt@utexas.edu
Home Department: Health Behavior and Health Education
Degree Program: MS
Research Interests: I am interested in exploring sources of health and fitness information, and how this information is interpreted to influence how individuals view their own bodies. I am also interested in how media exposure influences body image and physical activity participation, including mitigating factors for poor body image. More generally, I am interested in behavior change, media literacy, and physical activity as means for empowerment.

School of Human Ecology

Name: Brittany Wittenberg
E-mail: bmwitt@utexas.edu
Home Department: Human Development and Family Sciences
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: My research interests include reducing anxiety for children and families in the medical environment. I am currently collecting data on a psychosocial intervention program that was developed to reduce anxiety for children with autism spectrum disorder (and their families) in the hospital environment. I am also a Child Life Specialist and interested in research that supports best-practice for Child Life Specialists and the provision of patient- and family-centered care. Other research interests include how medical providers communicate with children, stress and resilience in families of children with special needs, the effects of sleep on parenting sensitivity, and child outcomes when parenting with mental illness.

School of Nursing

Name: Grace Githinji
E-mail: vache_fille@yahoo.com
Degree Program: AEMSN
Research Interests: I am a public health nurse, interested in immigrant populations and the process of acculturation especially with regard to the role that advertising and health communication plays in socializing in areas such as nutrition, health promotion and disease prevention among these populations and how they understand and utilize this information.

School of Social Work

Name: Sharon Lee
E-mail: snl225@utexas.edu
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a second year doctoral student in the School of Social Work. My areas of interest are mental health prevention/promotion (mental health literacy), health and mental health communication, risky health behavior (alcohol and drug use/abuse), health disparities among minorities, and help-seeking attitudes in health care settings. My target population is children and adolescent, but includes surrounding entities such as families, teachers, physicians and other social units. I am also a licensed clinical social worker and a family therapist with experience mostly in inpatient psychiatry.

Name: Jelena Todic
E-mail: jtsfyu@yahoo.com
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a first year PhD student at the School of Social Work. Prior to starting the program I practiced social work in various health care setting focusing on issues of women’s health, health care disparities, health literacy and social justice education for health care providers. Generally my research will focus on healthcare system-based interventions that contribute to elimination of health care and ultimately health disparities. More specifically, I am interested in interventions informed by intersectionality, relational theories and intentional examination of power, privilege and oppression. I am interested in LGBT health disparities, LGBT experiences in health care and culturally relevant caring services for LGBT patients. I am also interested in the impact of providers’ and patients’ multiple identities and levels of health literacy on: effective communication; shared decision-making; and family decisions related to end of life care, including organ donation.

Name: Casey Walsh
E-mail: walsh.casey@utexas.edu
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a 1st year Ph D student in the School of Social Work. I'm currently working as a Teaching Assistant at the Health, Behavior, and Research Training Institute. I am primarily interested in studying risk behaviors and prevention of risk behaviors in young adults ages 18-22. I have a background in clinical social work, providing crisis intervention and school advocacy for youth with behavioral and developmental disabilities at Boston Children's Hospital. I would love to collaborate with colleagues in public health and health policy.

School of Information

Name: Jin Gao
E-mail: jin_g@utexas.edu
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a third year doctoral student. My research interest is health information behavior and its interaction with information and communication technologies (ICTs). These are the main research questions I am interested: (1) how people search health information through ICTs? (2) How people perceive, use and manage health information? (3) How health information achieved through ICTs impacts people’s health behavior and overall quality of life. (4) What are the problems and challenges for people to use ICTs for health information? Recently I am studying the escalation of health anxiety in response to online health information seeking. It is such a common story that people start their search with headache but end up their search with brain tumor. My study aims to understand how and why health anxiety escalates over the process of online health information seeking.

Name: Ivan Watkins
E-mail: iwatkins@utexas.edu
Degree Program: PhD
Research Interests: I am a third year doctoral student whose research focuses on developing effective solutions for challenges facing older adult health information consumers. This research includes two dimensions: 1) developing educational interventions promoting older adults' eHealth literacy; and 2) designing eHealth resources for the aging population. For the first dimension, I am interested in efficacy of intelligent tutoring, multimedia design, and collaborative learning strategies in interventions. For the second dimension, I am interested in the design of web-based health applications that address accessibility and usability challenges facing older adults.

School of Public Health - Austin Regional Campus

Name: Nianest Alers
E-mail: nianest.maria.alersbarreto@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health
Degree Program: MPH
Research Interests: I am a second year MPH Epidemiology student at UTSPH. My broad research interests include physical activity, and health disparities among Latino immigrants. I am interested in exploring advertising and cultural factors that influence physical activity and physical inactivity behaviors.

Name: Kathleen Case
E-mail: kathleen.r.case@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health
Degree Program: DrPH
Research Interests: I am a third year DrPh student in Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences. I am interested in child and adolescent health, specifically with respect to physical activity promotion and tobacco use prevention. I am currently conducting research with University of Texas students with the goal of developing health communication messages regarding e-cigarette use.
In addition, I’m particularly interested in using communication strategies (infographics) to increase physical activity and improve nutrition in children and adolescents.

Name: Peteria Chan
E-mail: Peteria.W.Chan@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health
Degree Program: MPH
Research Interests: I am a 2nd year MPH student, and my concentration is in Health Promotion and Behavior Science. One of my research interests is studying perceived barriers and motivators for engaging and maintaining physical activity and exercise in women. I'm also interested in the public understanding of health promoting and public health messages from mass media campaigns, particularly messages related to physical activity and obesity prevention, environmental issues, determinants of health, and health disparities.

Name:Katherine Henry
E-mail: katherine.m.henry@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health, Health Promotion and Behavioral Science
Degree Program: MPH
Research Interests: I am an MPH student with a focus in Health Promotion and Behavioral Science. My research interests include diabetes, teen pregnancy, alcohol abuse prevention, physical activity and nutrition. The focus on communication within families or social units to influence positive change or prevent risk factors is of specific interest to me. However I am interested in researching ways to maximize positive health outcomes across a variety of audiences and settings, so I’m open to many ideas!

Name: Kelli Lovelace
E-mail: Kelli.L.Lovelace@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health, Health Promotion and Behavioral Science
Degree Program: MPH
Research Interests: I am interested in health communication as it pertains to change in behavioral health. My specific areas of interest are substance abuse (alcohol specifically), mental health in adolescents, sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Part of the reason I like these areas is because in our society they pertain to things that are labeled as taboo; I think that conversation is really important and even more so, the right conversation. I think that the way that we, as Public Health professionals, address these issues within and across different populations is crucial to the success of health interventions.

Name: Katelyn McKerlie
E-mail: katelyn.mckerlie@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health, UT School of Social Work
Degree Program: MPH, MSSW
Research Interests: I have a strong interest in adolescent health, particularly issues pertaining to sexuality and gender. One of my professional goals is to work towards creating a sex-positive society where adolescents are exposed to holistic comprehensive sexuality education. I am very interested in research that utilizes innovative ways to communicate to this population through new communication channels. I also have a more broad interest in utilizing systems and social construction theories and to examine social discourse particularly through new media to determine how it shapes meaning making around health phenomena. I have an interested in health disparities research as well. I have more experience and interest in qualitative methods but can also work with quantitative data.

Name: Rachael Perriello
E-mail: rachael.a.perriello@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health, EHGES [Epidemiology, Human Genetics, & Environmental Sciences]
Degree Program: MPH
Research Interests: I am a second semester MPH student with a focus in environmental and occupational health and safety. My research interests include recognition and evaluation of environmental and occupational exposures that are deleterious to health, and how to empower community members and employees, as well as commercial entities to seek reform and transition to safer, more sustainable practices. I am interested in how to best relay communications of hazards to these audiences in a way that balances the creation of concern and interest with the quelling of anxiety or unrest. I am also interested in the factors that affect adherence to safety recommendations, medical prescriptions, and emergency preparedness/ response measures.

Name: Sarah Seidel
E-mail: Sarah.E.Seidel@uth.tmc.edu
Home Department: UT School of Public Health, Health Promotion and Behavioral Science
Degree Program: DrPH
Research Interests: I am a second year doctoral student in HP/BS at UTSPH. I am also an adult education teacher and have interned with the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas in their Health Literacy initiative. My research interests are health literacy and health education, community health workers, and the way CHWs communicate as well as how they are trained and integrated within the traditional health care system (domestically and internationally). As far as health outcomes of interest, I am interested in both infectious and chronic disease. I am dedicated to focusing on low-income and low-literate populations.