Hi! I’m Olivia. I am an Assistant Professor of Communication at George Washington University.

Before getting my PhD at Ohio State, I worked in strategic communication, public relations, and advertising for boutique agencies in the D.C.-metro area. There, I provided account services to federal government, emerging start-up, and Fortune 500 company clients.

During that time, I often found myself wondering about the science behind the communication campaigns that I helped create. I wanted to know more about the research behind our practice. Those same questions that originally brought me to graduate training still inform my thinking and curiosity today.

Currently, my research focuses on message design, information processing, and persuasion. I draw on research from social psychology to understand people’s information processing patterns, and use communication scholarship to design and test messages that facilitate information processing and lead to engagement and persuasion. My goal is to inform theory, and ultimately practice, about message design strategies that can help people engage with and be persuaded by information that they might otherwise not engage with or resist.

I am also an active practitioner. I often consult for startups and small businesses about how to reach their growth goals with more effective communication. Most recently, I was also a message design strategist for the Department of Health and Human Service’s “We Can Do This” COVID-19 vaccine campaign.