Research Interest:
Cooperation; Competition; Game Theory; Small Group Interaction; Social Psychology; Virtual Environment

Skylar studies cooperation, competition, and small group interactions in virtual environment with game-like rules and systems. She draws from media psychology, social and cogntive psychology, game theory, and game studies to examine how people interact with each other under different settings as well as how they evaluate each other and become prosocial or antisocial toward each other. She is also interested in the psychological processes and outcomes of social interactions in single-player video games. Needless to say, she is also a big video game fan.  

Research Interest:
Human AI Interaction, Persuasive AI, Persuasive Technologies, Media Psychology AI ethics, Online Group Behavior.

Elisavet Averkiadi is a doctoral student within the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. Her research investigates users’ cognitive processing of their interactions with AI in persuasive contexts. Elisavet's research also examines the persuasive strategies employed by AI, with a focus on enhancing the ethical considerations and efficacy of such human-AI interactions. Elisavet also studies user behaviors within online group environments, utilizing computational methodologies to analyze creativity, productivity, and collaboration dynamics within Enterprise Social Media platforms.

Research Interest:
Cognitive Processing; Storytelling; Emotion; Persuasion; Media Psychology; Grief and Trauma

Faith Delle is a doctoral student in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations with a background in Professional Communication and Psychology. Her research focuses on individuals' cognitive processing and meaning-making of mediated messages, examining the role of storytelling, message content, and emotion in persuasion. Through a media psychology lens, she investigates grief, trauma, and loss, utilizing quantitative methods such as eye-tracking, psychophysiology, and real-time response measures to understand and predict behavior.

Research Interest:
Psychological Wellbeing, Mental Disorders, Social Media Use, Computer-Mediated Communications, Self concepts

Hanjie Liu is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Media and Information, focusing on technological platforms, psychological wellbeing, and self concepts. Her research investigates how relationally disadvantaged individuals (e.g., socially anxious, depressed, or ostracized) use social media and their differences in online information consumption. Approaching this from an empirical social science perspective, she employs experimental designs to better assist individuals with mental struggles in computer-mediated communications and understand the roles of negative moods and emotions in online message consumption. Hanjie is currently the editorial assistant for Journal of Communication.

Research Interest:
AI-Human Interaction, Gender-specific persuasion effects, Crisis communication.

Emily is a PhD candidate in Information and Media PhD program. Emily studies the psychological processes of AI agents and AI-mediated messages in terms of how people understand AI socially. Her research informs the effects of AI use and, more importantly, how to communicate about using AI to designers and social entities that deploy AI (e.g., companies and governments). Moreover, a broader scope of her study contexts encompasses social media user behavior, crisis communication, civic participation, digital application design, and gender-focused advertising content. Emily's research adopts a diverse range of methods, such as experiments, surveys, computational, and mixed-method approaches.

Research Interest:
Human-Agent Communication; AI; Robot; Social Psychology; Trust Repair; Moral Judgement; Attitude

Taenyun Kim is a PhD student in the department of Media and Information. He earned his dual bachelor's degree in Psychology and Informatics (2019) and master's degree in Interaction Science (2021) at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. He is interested in interdisciplinary fields such as Human-Agent Communication based on Social Psychology, Computer Science, and Robotics. He is interested in how people perceived newly imerging non-human agents (e.g., artificial intelligence (AI), and robots), especailly in terms of trust repair and moral judgment.

Research Interest:
Positive Media Psychology; Narrative Entertainment; Moral and Prosocial Development, Mental Health, Emotion Regulation, Perspective Taking. Narrative Content Features; Mental Model

Catherine (Cassie) Marple is a doctoral student in the Department of Media and Information. She earned an interdisciplinary B.A. in Communication, Philosophy, English, and Film & Digital Media from Baylor University and an M.A. in Communication from Wake Forest University. Working in the realm of positive media psychology, she studies the study the psychological processes by which audience members can use narrative entertainment media (e.g., Game of Thrones, Tangled, or Dilwale) to develop positive and prosocial patterns of perception and response. Specifically, she explores the textual features that influence moral perception of story characters and situations, and the processes by which short term patterns of perception influence the chronic accessibility of moral and prosocial concepts.

Research Interest:
Attention & Multitasking; Fear; Memory; Media Psychology; Behavioral Neuroscience

Alex Lover is currently a PhD student in the department of Communication at MSU. They studied Communication and Computer Science at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and completed a Master's in Media & Information at MSU.  They're interested in examining cognitive neuroscience topics such as attention, emotion, and memory using emerging technologies such as virtual reality.

Research Interest:
Narratives; Cognitive  Dissonance; Self-Determination Theory

Research Interest:
Media Psychology; Human-AI Interaction; Misinformation, Emotion; Physiopsychology

Research Interest:
Communication and Media; Racism and Media; Media Message Comprehension; Cooperative Video Game Play; Entertainment; Risky Health Behavior

David Ewoldsen, Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary scholar with a background in psychology, speech communication, and cognitive sciences. His research explores communication and media, focusing on racism and the media, media message comprehension, cooperative video game play, entertainment, and the role of attitudes in risky health behavior. Dr. Ewoldsen earned a joint Ph.D. from Indiana University and held faculty positions at the University of Alabama and Ohio State University before joining Michigan State University.

Research Interest:
Persuasion; Social Influence; Health Behaviors; Safety Behaviors, Normative Influences; Substance Use.

Dr. Nancy Rhodes is a social psychologist and a faculty member at Michigan State University, formerly of the Ohio State University School of Communication. Her research interests center on persuasion and social influence, with a particular focus on health and safety behaviors. Dr. Rhodes has published works on the effects of attitudes and norms on cigarette smoking, risky driving behavior, substance use, and resistance toward health-related messages, and has ongoing projects in these areas.