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Our Team


Core Research Team



Cornell Team

Image of Jeff Niederdeppe
Hub Director

Jeff Niederdeppe is Associate Dean of Faculty Development for the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and a Professor of Communication and Public Policy at Cornell University. His research examines the effects of media campaigns, strategic messages and news coverage in shaping health behavior, social policy and health equity.

Image of Neil Lewis Jr
Leadership Team

Neil Lewis Jr. is a Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine, where he is an associate professor in the department of communication, division of general internal medicine, school of public policy, and graduate field of psychology. He is a behavioral scientist who studies the motivational, behavioral, and equity implications of social interventions and policies.

Jamila Michener
Leadership Team

Jamila Michener is an Associate Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University. She studies poverty, racism, and public policy, with a particular focus on health and housing. She is author of the award-winning book, Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics. She is Associate Dean for Public Engagement at the Brooks School of Public Policy, co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, co-director of the Politics of Race, Immigration, Class and Ethnicity (PRICE) research initiative, and board chair of the Cornell Prison Education Program.

Colleen L. Barry
Leadership Team

Colleen L. Barry is the inaugural dean of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on how health and social policies can affect a range of outcomes for individuals with mental illness and substance use, and communities at risk for violence. She also studies how communication strategies can increase public support for evidence-based policies to improve the health and wellbeing of people with mental illness and substance use disorders and reduce stigma.

Norman Porticella
Leadership Team

Norman Porticella is a Research Associate in the Department of Communication at Cornell University where he studies health communication, public engagement in science and public policy, and community science capacity. He also facilitates inclusive research by liaising between academic and local communities and managing a mobile research lab.

Image of Kari Waters
Research Assistant

Kari Waters is a Research Associate in the Department of Communications at Cornell University. She currently studies survey sampling methodologies, with a particular focus on who is left out, and what that means for public policy, including health equity. She is also interested in the interaction between institutions, policy making, government (in)action, and its effects on democracy.

image of Sarah Rozenblum
Postdoctoral Researcher

Sarah Rozenblum is a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Her research explores how policymakers in North America and Western Europe use science to craft public health policies, disseminate expert knowledge, and communicate with the public.

Image of Emma Cox
Research Assistant

Emma Cox is a PhD student in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. Her research examines how (entertainment, strategic, and news) media messages influence people’s perceptions about health policies– particularly those with implications for social equity.

Image of Rebekah Wicke
Research Assistant

Rebekah Wicke is a PhD student in Communication at Cornell University. Her research examines how media coverage of health and science influences public perceptions and decision-making.

University of Minnesota Team

Image of Sarah Gollust

Hub Director

Sarah Gollust is a Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Her research examines the influence of the media and public opinion in the health policy process, the dissemination of research into policymaking, and the politics of health policy.

Leadership Team

Rebekah Nagler is Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in Liberal Arts and an Associate Professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Nagler’s research examines the effects of routine exposure to health information in the media.

Image of Muna Hassan

Leadership Team

Muna Hassan is a dedicated epidemiologist and research coordinator, specializing in health equity initiatives. In her current role, she provides vital support for grant-funded projects, focusing on strategic communication for advancing health equity and promoting equal access to cancer care.

Image of Kristina Medero

Postdoctoral Researcher

Kristina Medero is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Minnesota. Her understanding of health disparities were shaped by her experiences as a health worker in the US and health-educator in South Africa. While earning her PhD in communication from the Ohio State University, she developed a research program focused on examining how the use of messages and narratives may attenuate health disparities among stigmatized social groups (e.g., racial/sexual underserved groups, individuals with mental illness, etc).

Image of CeRon Ford

Research Assistant

CeRon Ford is a PhD Student in Health Services Research, Policy, and Administration at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. His research interests include health and healthcare politics, health disparities and inequities, and health and social policy; specifically examining the potential health impacts of U.S. policies on historically marginalized populations.

Image of Chloe Gansen

Research Assistant

Chloe Gansen is a PhD student in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests are in health communication, determinants of vaccination, and media content that contributes to the politicization of science and health information.

Yusra Murad

Research Assistant

Yusra Murad is a PhD student in Health Services Research, Policy, and Administration at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Her research interests are at the intersection of housing, healthcare and journalism, with a focus on how media narratives can contribute to the ongoing work of establishing housing as healthcare; identifying structural racism as a driver of the housing crisis and subsequent poor health outcomes; and ultimately compel policy change.

Quin Nelson

Research Assistant

Quin Nelson is a PhD student in Health Services Research, Policy, and Administration at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Her research interests include mental health equity and medical sociology.

Image of Elizabeth Al

Research Assistant

Elizabeth Al s a MPH student in Public Health Administration & Policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Her research interests are exploring health inequities and understanding their impact on all aspects of health, to better address these disparities through policy work.

Wesleyan Team

Hub Director

Erika Franklin Fowler is a Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and a Co-Director of the Wesleyan Media Project. Her research tracks and examines the content and effect of local messaging in electoral and health policy settings.

Leadership Team

Steven Moore is an Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. His research explores the organization of racial attitudes in the mass public and how they shape and are shaped by various political phenomena, particularly public policy and media coverage.

Leadership Team

Breeze Floyd is the Program Manager for the Wesleyan Media Project at Wesleyan University. She contributes to data collection and analyses for WMP’s research projects.

Pavel Oleinikov

Faculty Affiliate

Pavel Oleinikov uses his background in social and natural sciences to advance the application of quantitative methods to data from the social world. A large part of his work lies in assisting Wesleyan faculty in integrating diverse data sources in the form of text, images, and data from APIs. Pavel has a PhD in Political Science from University of California, Santa Barbara.

image of Natalia de Paula Moreire

Postdoctoral Researcher

Natália de Paula Moreira is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Wesleyan University. Her primary fields of interest are public opinion, political methodology, and public policy. Moreira received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of São Paulo in 2021. She also holds a master’s degree in political science and a BA in social science. From 2017 to 2018, Moreira was a visiting student at the political science department at Texas A&M University.

image of Meiqing Zhang

Postdoctoral Researcher

Meiqing Zhang is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science at Wesleyan Media Project. Her research examines the evolution of political values and attitudes in relation to ideological, cognitive and affective polarization.

Image of Yujin Kim

Postdoctoral Researcher

Yujin Kim is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Wesleyan University. Her research focuses on political communication, media effects, and computational methods, analyzing political discourse across media platforms. Her work aims to address democratic challenges such as political polarization. She received her Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022.

Alumni

Alumni

Laura Baum
AICP, Urban planning & program management professional

Carson Crane

Alumni

Carson Crane
Project Manager and Epidemiologist, Arundel Metric

Jielu Yao

Alumni

Jiawei Liu
Assistant Professor in the STEM Translational Communication Center and the Department of Advertising at the University of Florida

Markus Neumann

Alumni

Markus Neumann
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Computational Social Science at Duke Kunshan University

Alumni

Margaret Tait
Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Studies at the University of Richmond

Alumni

Yiwei Xu
Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center for an Informed Public (CIP) in the Information School at the University of Washington

Jielu Yao

Alumni

Jielu Yao
is a fellow at the National University of Singapore.

Furkan Cakmak

Alumni

Furkan Cakmak

Teairah Taylor

Alumni

Teairah Taylor