McCombs School of Business

Kristie Loescher, M.P.H., D.B.A.
Lecturer, Management Department

Prior to her career in academia, Kristie worked in the healthcare industry for 15 years in the areas of quality assurance, utilization management, and clinical research. Her research focuses on ethical education, organizational ethics, communication, change management, and diversity management.

College of Communication

Lucy Atkinson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising and Public Relations

Atkinson's research focuses on the intersection of politics and consumer behavior, particularly among young people. She explores whether and to what degree socially conscious consumption, such as buying fair-trade coffee or hybrid cars, either helps or hinders conventional civic and political engagement, such as voting and volunteering.

Craig Champlin, Ph.D.
Professor, Chair, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders

Champlin's research focuses on physiological correlates of auditory perception, the effects of noise on hearing, spectro temporal processing of sound, and otoacoustic emissions. He has consulted on projects dealing with community noise issues, hearing conservation education for children, and infant hearing screening.

Vincent Cicchirillo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising

Cicchirillo's research focuses on the influence of video game play features and contexts on post-game play outcomes. Of particular interest is the examination of character representations within video games (i.e., race & gender) and how that influences outcomes related to identification, positive & negative valence, as well as aggression.

Renita Coleman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, School of Journalism

Coleman's recent work in health communication includes examining the public health model of reporting violence in television news magazines and creating more effective HIV/AIDS messages for African Americans. She also studies journalism ethics.

Barbara Davis, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders

Davis's interests are in speech acquisition and relationships of phonetic patterns in acquisition to phonological patterns observed in mature speakers. Her earlier research examined babies' "babble" and she identified a series of consonant-vowel combinations suggesting that spoken language could have evolved from "baby babble."

Erin Donovan-Kicken, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies

Donovan-Kicken specializes in interpersonal and health communication. She researches the ways that people communicatively cope with major life stressors. The primary foci of her work are strategic management of sensitive information and difficult conversations, especially pertaining to health and illness and relationship management.

Anthony Dudo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising

Dudo examines media representations of science and environmental issues, scientists, public communication activities and interactions with journalists and strategic communicators, and the effects of informational and entertainment media on public understanding of science.

LeeAnn Kahlor, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Advertising

Kahlor's research is on health and environmental risk communication with an emphasis on risk information seeking. Her most recent projects focus on cancer risk information seeking, general health risk information seeking, information seeking related to global warming risks and risk information seeking related to energy alternatives.

Wei-Na Lee, PhD.
Professor, Department of Advertising

Lee's research includes the representation of African Americans in direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical commercials and the impact of direct-to-consumer (dtc) pharmaceutical advertising on patient-doctor interactions.

Brad Love, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Love researches the persuasive capabilities of mass media, particularly as applied to pro-social topics such as public health. This includes examining the social and psychological elements necessary for persuasion and the influence that digital media can have on the process.

Michael Mackert, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising

Mackert's research is on telemedicine, which is the provision of healthcare from a distance via telecommunication technologies including the Web. Lately he has focused on health literacy as it pertains to advertising and the effective communication of health in online communities. He is also interested in the role that trust plays in health communication.

Matthew McGlone, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies

McGlone's research is on strategies people use to talk about difficult topics (sex, bodily functions, prejudice, etc.) and their use of "contextomy" (quoting out of context) to discuss sociopolitical issues (affirmative action, abortion, gun control) in self-serving ways. He also explores testing anxiety experienced by members of stigmatized groups. 

Liza Stavchansky Lewis, Ph.D.
Lecturer

Lewis researchers direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising and pharmaceutical sponsorships.

Pat Stout, Ph.D.
John P. McGovern Regents Professor in Health and Medical Science Communication, Department of Advertising

Stout's research focuses on persuasive messages and advertising, with particular interest on emotional responses to messages delivered via the Web. She is also interested in the effectiveness of health-promotion messages and social marketing, as well as direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising.

Yongjun Sung, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising

Sung's research includes cigarette advertising in youth magazines and the role of cigarette promotion in marketing.

Karin Wilkins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Radio, Television, and Film

Wilkin's research focuses on global communication, development and social change.

Kris Wilson, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer, School of Journalism

Wilson is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is an international expert on the communication of climate change research and his research analyzes press coverage of climate change, factors that influence global warming reporting, and public (mis)understanding of mediated science.

College of Education

Marlene Dixon, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education

Dixon researches human performance management in non-profit athletics; work-family conflict in sports organizations; and reasons associated with participation and withdrawal in youth sports and the design of sport programs that increase and prolong involvement in physical activity.

Dixie Stanforth, M.S.
Lecturer, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education

Stanforth studies persuasive messaging to change health behaviors. She is currently working on an online survey to measure undermining exercise/eating behaviors and hydration messaging with EMS workers. Her particular interest is finding ways to increase physical activity levels at all ages and on prevention of childhood obesity.

Mary Steinhardt, Ph.D.
Professor, Health Education, Department of Kinesiology & Health Education

Steinhardt focuses on the development and implementation of programs that enhance individual and organizational resilience.  Her research explores the determinants and methods for building resilience and strength when challenged with change and stressful situations. 

Cockrell School of Engineering

Richard Corsi, Ph.D.
ECH Bantel Professor of Professional Practice, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

Corsi's research focuses on the physics and chemistry of indoor air. Corsi has also studied a wide range of indoor sources of air pollution, from dishwashers to paint and computers. He is actively involved in public outreach to educate the public about indoor air pollution.

Hillary Hart, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

Hart researches the communication of technology and concepts related to indoor air quality.

Michael Webber, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Webber researches energy policy, energy and water, alternative and renewable energy, biofuels, and energy in Texas. He is also interested in communicating about these topics with lay audiences and energy policy makers and in producing outreach tools to help the public understand the trade-offs associated with various energy sources.

Jackson School of Geosciences

Jay Banner, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Geological Sciences; Director, Environmental Science Institute

Banner's research is on Earth surface processes with the goal of understanding the interactions that occur between the atmosphere-land-ocean systems, and how these interactions are preserved in the geologic record. As director of ESI, he is also interested in public outreach and science education.

Cary King, PhD.
Research Associate, Jackson School of Geosciences

King studies energy systems, their environmental impact, how they work together, and societal consumption of energy resources. King is also involved in creating tools to help the public and policymakers understand the tradeoffs among electricity generation sources.

Suzanne Pierce, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor , Department of Geological Sciences

Pierce researchers groundwater management, public understanding of science and sense of ownership of natural resources among indigenous peoples.

School of Law

Melinda E. Taylor, J.D.
Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Environmental Law Clinic

Taylor specializes in the use of incentives and market mechanisms to encourage the conservation of private land and water resources.

College of Natural Sciences

Christine Hawkes
Assistant Profession, Integrative Biology, School of Biological Science

Hawkes researches how plant-microbe interactions affect community and ecosystem processes. I am also interested in how these relationships will be influenced by alterations in climate, land-use, and species invasions. She also is interested in communicating biological science to lay audiences.

School of Nursing

Diane Tyler, Ph.D.
Professor of Clinical Nursing

Tyler is the acting director of the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program. Her teaching, practice and research interests involve health promotion and disease prevention. Current projects focus on weight and health of children and their families. Other recent work centers on creating systems in primary care community-based settings to improve delivery of preventive health services.

School of Pharmacy

Scott Strassels, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Strassels researches the epidemiology and economics of acute pain, cancer-related pain, palliative care, and pain at the end of life, as well as how outcomes research informs health policy. He also is interested in the intersection of law, medicine, and ethics as they apply to pain and issues at the end of life, medical decision making, and pharmaceuticals and health technology.

LBJ School of Public Affairs

David J. Eaton, Ph.D.
Bess Harris Jones Centennial Professor in Natural Resource Policy Studies

Eaton researches policy related to environmental engineering, health, agriculture, and international affairs. Eaton's current research concerns U.S.-Mexico environmental cooperation, new methods for evaluation of air pollution emissions, joint management by Palestinians and Israelis of shared groundwater, and water conservation in Texas.

School of Social Work

Yolanda Padilla, Ph.D.
Professor of Social Work and Women's Studies

Padilla researches poverty and the development of effective social welfare policy. Within the broader area of poverty, she investigates racial and ethnic disparities in health and well-being in the United States, particularly among Latino populations. She also studies poverty's impact on health and development in early childhood.