My interdisciplinary program of research advances our understanding of how individuals and groups learn and use civic and science information.  I employ eye-tracking technology to investigate theoretical propositions about political learning and decision making that often cannot be adequately addressed using traditional survey and survey-experimental methods. By using this technique, I have been able either to confirm tenuous survey results, challenge those results, or pose new questions. Recently, I have leveraged machine-learning techniques to enhance the predictive and explanatory power of eye movements.  The long-term goal of my work is to understand the conditions that facilitate or inhibit sound decisions in a democratic society.  

My interdisciplinary expertise is reflected in my publishing record, as my papers have been published in flagship journals in three disciplines: communication (Journal of Communication,  Communication Research, Human Communication Research), psychology (Psychological Science), and political science (American Journal of Political Science). I have also published in top subfield journals (Political Communication, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience).

My work has received recognition from leading professional organizations, including the Walter Lippmann Best Article of the Year Award from the American Political Science Association, and Top Paper Awards from the International Communication Association and National Communication Association. This program of work has offered a fruitful training ground for junior researchers, yielding nine co-authored journal publications for seven graduate students and three undergraduate students who I trained in my lab. 

I have received recognition for my teaching and mentoring activities. For my efforts at involving undergraduate students in research, I received the Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. For my efforts at mentoring and teaching graduate students, I received the Faculty Member of the Year Award from the School of Communication’s Graduate Student Organization.  I am the faculty advisor for OSU's Pilipino Student Association. I am the Director of the Ungraduate Program in the School of Communication.

I serve on the editorial boards at the Journal of Communication and Communication Research. I am a founding member and treasurer of ICA's Communication Science and Biology interest group.

I was previously a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Social Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2012 to 2013, I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, having received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Illinois in August 2012.