Recipients
2022-2023 Sandi Smith Reasearch Fellowship Recipients:
Jong In Lim. Lim's project aims to test how social support perceptions relate to chronic illness patients' self-concepts. Specifically, he will examine how perceived chronic illness-related stigma changes when patients think they receive less or more social support than they deserve from close others. The fund will be used to gather survey data for this project. Lim's advisor on this project is Amanda Holmstrom, Ph.D.
Hanjie Liu. Liu’s research aims to understand mental health outcomes and the underlying mechanisms of coping with social media ostracism for socially anxious individuals. This group is more vulnerable to experiencing prolonged negative effects from ostracism, a traumatic experience of being excluded by others. Specifically, Liu will conduct experiments using the social media ostracism paradigm to explore social comparison and self-evaluation processes as well as the mental health outcomes that correspond to these processes. Liu’s advisor on this project is David R. Ewoldsen, Ph.D
2021-2022 Sandi Smith Research Fellowship Recipients:
Sanguk Lee. Lee will use the award in research that centers around how cancer patients and caregivers often engage in a prolonged information search process by asking a series of questions about online information-seeking. The research aims to address sequential nature of the process. Sanguk’s research will employ computational methods to uncover patterns of sequential seeking by looking at posts updated in an online cancer community. Lee’s advisor on this project is Tai-quan “Winson” Peng, Ph.D.
Kaitlin Lewin. Lewin’s project will use EEG (or electroencephalography) to investigate the risk for changes in brain activity during various tasks that are part of executive functioning (e.g., attention, working memory, and cognitive flexibility). Specifically, she will examine how users' brains may work differently when they're separated from their smartphones. Lewin’s advisor on this project is Dar Meshi, Ph.D.
Emily Shuo Zhan. Zhan’s research seeks to explore how women in online health communities offer each other information and help that is rarely seen in offline interactions. In this process, the nature of the technology and online disinhibition play critical roles. To study this, she will combine interviews and surveys with women in these groups. Zhan’s advisors for this project are María Molina, Ph.D. and Esther Thorson, Ph.D.
2020-2021 Sandi Smith Research Fellowship Recipients:
Leigh Anne Tiffany. With the support of Dr. Esther Thorson, the recipient will study the impact of science journalism experience on information selection from press releases. Her study will use a novel quasi-experimental approach to provide tangible measures of the impact of science journalism experience on science reporting news value judgements.
Shelby Wilcox and Nolan Jahn. With the guidance of Dr. Ralf Schmälzle, the recipients will study how brains respond to visual images from real-world campaigns to identify what images are most engaging and effective. Jahn and Wilcox will be using an EEG (electroencephalography) device to measure the
response people have to images related to e-cigarette use.
2019-2020 Sandi Smith Research Fellowship Recipient: Corinne Brown. The recipient will study the onset and offset of phonation during connected speech in adults with AdSD by using videoendoscopy. The goal of the research is toward development of better voice assessment and treatment strategies in patients with AdSD to aid them in their communication and improve quality of life.
2018-2019 Sandi Smith Research Fellowship Recipients: Ruth Osoro and Alexa Roscizewski. The recipients will study approaches for encouraging college-aged men to get the HPV vaccine, which can prevent several types of cancer.
2017-2018 Sandi Smith Research Fellowship Recipient: Youjin Jang. The recipient will study the effect of social norms on behaviors and reactions to potential alcohol-related sexual assault.