Sandi Smith Research Fellowship Winners 2023-2024

February 26, 2024 - Ashley Wilson

The Health and Risk Communication Center (HRCC) is in the seventh year of its new fellowship award, the Sandi Smith Research Fellowship. This year’s recipient was Adrian Kresnak an Health and Risk Communication Masters Student. Funds awarded from this fellowship are in recognition of each student’s exceptional scholarly efforts and will aid these students in their research initiatives.  

Kresnak's research aims to explore how Filipino-American journalists communicated recommended health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is interested in how anti-Asian sentiments around the disease influenced news coverage in ethnic media. The idea for this project came from her mother's work at a Filipino-American newspaper back home. Her Advisor is Bruno Takahaski 

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 have been an inspiration for students and faculty.