Education
Ph.D. Communication, Arizona State University
M.A. Communication, Arizona State University
B.S. Speech Communication, Bradley University
Courses Taught
CST 200: Community and Communication
CST 208: Organizational Communication
CST 408: Health Communication
CST 601: Engaging Communication Scholarship
CST 608: Communicating Innovation
Research
Food Policy & Community Food Systems: My work centers how communities come together to navigate food access, build healthier food environments, and create more equitable food systems.
Organizational & Health Communication: I draw from organizational communication theories to study how communities organize around health needs. I look at how communication shapes the everyday work of organizations and public health efforts—and how we can design those systems to better support people.
Community-Engaged Research & Applied Scholarship: I study how policies take shape in real communities, emphasizing collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and the communicative practices that help create lasting, meaningful change. My work relies on engaged and emerging methods to create reciprocal and mutually beneficial ways for people to actively shape the research that affects their communities.
Communicating Innovation: I help people communicate health, science, environmental, and technological innovations more clearly and confidently, drawing on my public speaking background and participatory methods to make complex ideas accessible.
Selected Publications
Everybody Eats: Communication and the Paths to Food Justice (2021), with Niesha Douglas. University of California Press. *Winner: National Communication Association, Organizational Communication Division Outstanding Monograph Award, 2022.
Open‑access previews: Google Books https://books.google.com/books/about/Everybody_Eats.html?id=eKc5EAAAQBAJ
“Discourse Tracing as Qualitative Practice” (2009), with Sarah J. Tracy. Qualitative Inquiry. *Winner: National Communication Association, Ethnography Division Best Article Award, 2010.
Open‑access PDF (UNCG NC DOCKS): https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/wcu/listing.aspx?id=7080
“Working with Policy: Restructuring Healthy Eating Practices and the Circuit of Policy Communication” (2012). Journal of Applied Communication Research.
“Enacting Sustainable School‑Based Health Initiatives: A Communication‑Centered Approach to Policy and Practice” (2011), with H.E. Canary. American Journal of Public Health.
Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and Constraint (2024), co‑authored with Eisenberg, Goodall, & Trethewey. Bedford/St. Martin’s. *Winner: National Communication Association, Organizational Communication Division Outstanding Textbook Award, 2025
“We Still Have to Eat: Communication Infrastructure and Local Food Organizing as Public Health Responses to COVID‑19” (2021), with Jasmine Palmer & Marianna Levithan. Frontiers in Communication.
Open‑access PDF: https://public-pages-files-2025.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.707144/pdf
