Research

I am a social psychologist with a research program focused on identifying and utilizing insights from the psychological sciences to create and evaluate innovative risk communication-based interventions to improve the implementation and utilization of healthcare services. A majority of my research has focused on vaccines and public reactions to infectious disease outbreaks.

I am currently a PI on a NIH-National Institute on Aging K01 to explore whether we can better promote vaccination in older adults by creating messaging that targets psychological motivations/traits associated with low vaccine confidence and collaborating with adults aged >50 year with low vaccine confidence during the message-design process.

I am also PI on a U01 collaborative agreement with the CDC to conduct surveys with healthcare providers and the general public of important vaccine-related issues to help inform Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' recommendations or to inform the design of interventions to promote vaccine uptake.