William Gee
Email: gee.127@osu.edu
Advisor: Dr. William Eveland
Ji Youn "Jessica" Ryu
Email: ryu.205@osu.edu
As a health and risk communication scholar, my research centers around health communication and persuasion. At the core of my research are two central themes: (1) Understanding why people acquire health information and how it shapes health beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors, and (2) designing theory-driven interventions to promote health behaviors. Across my work, I combine theoretically grounded inquiry with diverse methods to better understand the drivers and effects health/risk communication and design health campaign interventions. While my work is primarily quantitative, I employ qualitative, mixed, interdisciplinary methods where appropriate. In my dissertation, I examine the impact of active versus passive information acquisition in encouraging physical activity, where I leverage AI-based chatbots as a tool to compare different modes of information acquisition.
Dissertation title: Information acquisition behavior as a tool to bridge the intention-behavior gap in physical activity: Application and extension of health action process approach
Advisor: Dr. Shelly Hovick