I’ve published one of my favorite studies of my career 🙂 This piece builds on the concept of identity gaps from the communication theory of identity (CTI), and explores how employees experience and manage occupational identity gaps. Curious what people do when they work in careers that don’t align with their sense of self? Find out by reading this article!

I was awarded the Dean’s Seminar in the College of Fine Arts & Communication, and proudly presented my program of research. Thank you, Dean Fleming, for this amazing honor!

I’m excited to have won one of Texas State’s internal research grants for a  project exploring how childcare apps affect working parents’ well-being. I’ve been struck recently by employees’ record-breaking levels of stress, triggering the “burnout epidemic” and the “great resignation.” As a parent, I know many of us have been particularly struggling, as blurred boundaries between work and home increase interruptions from family members and caregivers. This project will investigate childcare apps (e.g., HiMama, Brightwheel) and parent-teacher communication apps (e.g., ClassDojo, Seesaw), which inundate working parents with messages throughout the workday, with notifications, pictures, and questions. Daycares and schools ubiquitously adopt these social technologies, but there is little to no academic research on their effects. Over the next year, I’m excited to work on this project, which will seek to understand how features and uses of childcare apps—the content, frequency of messages, etc.—play a role in working parents’ ability to compartmentalize responsibilities, manage multiple identities, and cognitively function at work. Stay tuned 🙂

This most recent article explores the process of organizational identification by analyzing an organizational hashtag, a hashtag created by organizational stakeholders for a specific purpose. Through a qualitative analysis of the hashtag #EXSTpride, I show how organizational hashtags produce and reflect identity and identification. I hope you enjoy the manuscript!

I am grateful to have received one of the ten Presidential Research Awards established by Texas State University’s President Trauth to fund my sabbatical for the full academic year (2021-2022). During my faculty development leave, I’m continuing research projects, applying for external funding, and working on a scholarly book.

Many of us make upward social comparisons on social media — comparing ourselves to others who we believe are faring better than we are. We might think, “She’s prettier than I am,” “Her job seems more glamorous than mine,” or “He drives a nicer car than me.” Our research team was interested in identifying individuals who frequently make upward social comparisons and determining which online behaviors and psychological characteristics are most predictive of these individuals. In this study, we explain key factors related to high upward social comparisons: those with low quality of life, low perceived social support, high in fear of missing out, high levels of social media addiction, frequent censorship to avoid judgment, and feelings of safety while using social media. If you are interested in social-media use and mental health, I encourage you to give it a read!

Our team studying social media and mental well-being published a new article in the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services. In this study, we show how sexual minority status predicts intent-to-quit, even after considering psychological and occupational factors. We hope you’ll read our work, here, if you are interested.

I’m on a team of interdisciplinary researchers at Texas State who published a new article in Computers in Human Behavior. The article, which you can read here, explores differences in social media use between sexual minorities and heterosexual individuals. Sexual minorities are more likely to spend more hours on Twitter and engage in downward social comparisons (i.e., comparing themselves to others they view as inferior) than heterosexual individuals. In our paper, we suggest these findings could be useful in outreach strategies to promote sexual minority wellbeing, marketing efforts on Twitter, and directions for future research.

Sports play a monumental role in our society. In this Communication Quarterly article, co-authored with Regina Alabere, Jake Michalski, and Courtney Brown,  we sought to understand what communication in sports teaches people about communication in the workplace. Although the workplace health promotion literature describes how wellness initiatives may influence specific organizational behaviors, it does not a) account for sports activities outside of work and b) explain how sports experiences can shape our general understanding of work. Participating in sports outside of work is likely to serve as a source of anticipatory socialization. Yet scholars have understood little about how athletic involvement outside work may socialize individuals to vocations and organizations. To fill this gap in the literature, we focused on the sports and work experiences of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID). Interviews and observations of working Special Olympics athletes illuminated how sports communication socialized individuals by helping athletes learn valuable skills used at work, adapt to various job duties, and develop confident work identities. These findings demonstrate the importance of sports communication beyond the playing field, and we encourage continued exploration to better understand the impact of everyday athletic experiences.

I am so honored to have received the 2020 Linda L. Putnam Early Career Scholar Award from the International Communication Association! As I said in my acceptance speech, shown in the picture below, I feel so proud to be part of such a wonderful community of organizational communication scholars. I’m incredibly grateful for all the ICA Org Comm Division has done to help me in my early career!