Hi, my name is Lauren. I work for the Center for Health Communication at The University of Texas at Austin in the Moody College of Communication. You can call me LK.
The best way to describe what I do is applying evidence from health communication and message effects research to local projects. I do project management, strategy, copywriting for coordinated health campaigns. With the Cancer Prevention and Control Platform, me and my colleagues at CHC provide technical assistance and capacity-building to improve the long-term communication strategies of many local nonprofits around Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast.
I also continue to publish peer-reviewed research in persuasion, message effects, cancer prevention. You can connect to my work through Google Scholar or ORCID. I also have several projects listed on Open Science Foundation.
I graduated with a Ph.D. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) at the University of Wisconsin in August 2024. I studied the psychology of persuasion and behavior change in ways that apply to designing health campaigns. My dissertation was on psychological reactance theory. I also taught the writing lab for J202: Introduction to Mass Media Practices for four semesters and worked for the Communication, Brain and Behavior lab.
I previously graduated with an MA from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Department of Communication, where I TA’d for CMN 102: Intro to Communication and did research in psychological reactance theory and the theory of planned behavior. Before that, I graduated from Texas Tech University’s College of Media & Communication and the Texas Tech Honors College. I had the most amazing experience as a Red Raider.
I am originally from Austin, TX and after eight long years, I moved back in 2022. You can probably find me at Chuy’s with the same friends I’ve had forever or my Grammy’s house.
Lauren Kriss 