Sandi Smith Research Fellowship Winners 2024-2025

April 23, 2025 - Ashley Wilson

The Health and Risk Communication Center (HRCC) is in the eighth year of the Sandi Smith Research Fellowship. This year’s recipients are Naadiyahtu Iddrisu an Information & Media Ph.D. student, and Josh Weinzapfel, a linked Masters Student in the Department of Communication. Funds awarded from this fellowship are in recognition of each student’s exceptional scholarly efforts and will aid these students in their research initiatives.   

Iddrisu’s study seeks to understand how mothers make meaning from breastfeeding infographics and its influence on their breastfeeding decisions using a survey stimuli-testing of breastfeeding infographics. The goal of this study is to better inform the creation of breastfeeding infographics that meet the breastfeeding informational needs of mothers as well as encourage breastfeeding. This fund is to help recruit participants (pregnant, lactating, and women trying to conceive) for the study. This study will be supervised by Dr. Bree Holtz. 

Weinzapfel’s research aims to examine how older adults utilize technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their health and well-being. He is specifically interested in how emerging technologies can help address social isolation among older adults in rural Michigan, including in St. Joseph, Mackinac, and Schoolcraft counties, and improve the quality of life of older adults of color. This project is based on ongoing research he is conducting under the supervision of his advisors, Dr. Yoo Jung (Erika) Oh and Dr. Brooke Wolfe, who work in the Department of Communication. 

The Sandi Smith Research Fellowship was founded in 2017 to celebrate Dr. Smith’s dedication to health and risk communication scholarship in the College of Communication Arts & Sciences; she is the former director of the Health and Risk Communication Center. A prolific scholar and International Communication Association Fellow, Dr. Smith’s passion for communication research, teaching, and health communication has been an inspiration for students and faculty.