Manusheela Pokharel

Top Paper at NCA 2021

HCAT presented multiple papers at NCA 2021, including a Top Paper in the Health Communication Division. Led by Manu Pokharel, the manuscript reported the results of biophysiological research of UV imagery. Pokharel, M., Jensen, J. D., John, K. K., Christy, K. R., Taylor-Burton, S., & Upshaw, S. (2021, November). Visual communication and skin cancer prevention:…

Helen publishes multiple articles on Communication & Emotion

Dr. Helen Lillie is an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in HCAT Lab, and she has been publishing up a storm. Her primary research program focuses on communication and emotion. Helen has published lead-authored articles in Psychology & Health, Journal of Family Communication, and a book chapter in Communicating Science in Times of Crisis: Coronavirus. All of…

Manu wins Miller Dissertation Award

Manusheela “Manu” Pokharel (Ph.D., 2019) was recently awarded the Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the National Communication Association. Pokharel received her doctorate in communication in May 2019 from the University of Utah and is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Texas State University. The Gerald R. Miller award…

HCAT wins COVID seed grant

HCAT won funding from the Immunology, Inflammation, and Infectious Disease Initiative (i3) at the University of Utah. The funding provides support for a repeated, cross sectional study that will track perceptions of COVID communication across 18 weeks. Notably, we are interested in whether people felt COVID messages were exaggerated. HCAT members Andy J. King (Iowa…

New CIO article published in PEC

Several years ago, HCAT published an article focused on cancer information overload (CIO). In that article, we proposed a measure for the construct, examined psychometric properties, and compared it to Powe’s measure of cancer fatalism. As a follow-up, we recently published another article examining a refined version of the CIO scale. Both articles can be…

Summer 2018 Writing Retreat: Keef House

HCAT lab had another writing retreat. In August 2018, we headed to Chicago for the glorious 5 day retreat. Five days! It was amazing.

Our house was a small mansion located just north of Chicago. We were told that the house was once owned by Chief Keef. I’m not sure if that story is true, but we decided to name it the Keef House.

We ate deep dish pizza, put post-it notes on the walls to track progress, and worked, worked, worked. Nick made salmon one night. Jake didn’t sleep.

The Keef House writing retreat was hosted by Courtney Scherr and Lisa Guntzviller. It was one of the best retreats of all time.

March: Dogfight

If you ran into a lab member in March, then we probably looked busy. And Jake was definitely drinking some form of caffeine. That’s because we were working hard to get 7 article submitted to 2 different conferences.  The end of March is home to the submission deadline for the National Communication Association (NCA) and…

Spring: research, research, research

HCAT has lots of research in progress. We are writing IRBs, designing studies, collecting and analyzing data, and writing manuscripts. It’s great to have so much activity in the lab.  Recently, I started using post-it notes to keep track of all the studies in progress. It helps me to visually track the studies and it…

Manu defends her prospectus

Manu successfully defended her prospectus on February 7th, 2018. In HCAT lab, the prospectus defense is a cumulative process that builds on the comprehensive exams and the preprospectus. Her next, and final, meeting is the dissertation defense. Manu’s dissertation consists of three studies: a meta-analysis, a large visual communication experiment, and a biophysiological lab experiment.…

Sundance 2018

We love to go to Sundance Film Festival each year because (1) it is awesome, (2) it is nearby – Park City, UT), and (3) it is a wonderful opportuunity to learn about cutting edge communication technology (e.g., VR and AR).  Sundance is approximately 11 days long and the lab was out and about the…

Best Article in Risk Analysis

We just found out our 2017 publication in Risk Analysis was selected as a best article by the editors. The article is: Jensen, J. D., Pokharel, M., Scherr, C. L., King, A. J., Brown, N., & Jones, C. (2017). Communicating uncertainty to the public: How amount and source of uncertainty impact fatalism, backlash, and overload.…

2017 HCAT Writing Retreat – Adobe House

Once again, HCAT lab hosted a writing retreat in beautiful Park City, UT. The writing retreat was October 11th – 14th, 2017. The attendees were Lisa Guntzviller, Andy King, Courtney Scherr, Kevin K. John, Manusheela Pokharel, Chelsea Ratcliff, Kaylee Crossley, Katheryn Christy, Hannah Badal, Kevin Coe, and Brandon Rivera-Melo. We missed Rob Yale (a lot).…

The Dread Professor Jensen

Every HCAT writing retreat begins with an roundtable session where attendees detail what they will be working on. Typically, the roundtable is led by Jake, but this year, in honor of the 30yh anniversary of The Princess Bride, it was led by the Dread Professor Jensen. He told attendees to “work hard, submit manuscripts” as…

Kate Publishes Admiration Research in JHC!

                        Kate Christy recently published an article evaluating how admiration and memorability impact the processing of mammography PSAs. The research was published in the Journal of Health Communication (one of our favorite outlets!) and provides evidence that admired models have greater impact on intentions…

iMotions training

HCAT lab recently purchased a biophysiological measurement system from iMotions. The system allows us to measure eye movements, emotional response, and heart rate (among others). We’ve been interested in biophysiological measurement for years, and have conducted several eye tracking studies via the labs at Texas Tech  (Andy King) and BYU (Kevin John). But now we…

Grad seminar explores immersion 

In Fall 2016 I taught a 7000-level grad seminar called Communication Theory. Ten wonderful grads were in the class, including MA and PhD students.  We spent the semester exploring constructs and practicing how to think more abstractly. I used immersion as a practice construct as it is both timely and enduring. The students learned how…

2016 HCAT Writing Retreat

HCAT lab held another writing retreat October 12th – 16th, 2016 in Park City, UT. The writing retreat was held at a 5 bedroom house located just above main street in old town (you can rent it here). Fourteen people attended the retreat, including folks from Texas, Illinois, and Maryland. We had two research groups at the retreat: a skin cancer research group and a psychological reactance group. Both groups wrote manuscripts, analyzed data, and designed future studies.

The 2016 retreat also saw two different trips to the emergency room. Jake was in the emergency room when one of his sons developed a nasty case of parainfluenza. Kevin John ended up in the emergency room with appendicitis!

Despite these obstacles, the retreat was a huge success. We wrote from the moment the house opened on the 12th until 2 am in the morning the night of the 15th. Lisa Guntzviller led a workshop on building tables in Excel, and Jake led a workshop on the Johnson-Neyman (JN) technique.

The tattoo sleeves made a second appearance too. As folks finished papers, they were rewarded with the awesome sleeves. Nick Carcioppolo and Rob Yale weren’t able to make it this year, so we made Nick and Rob paper cutouts – and enjoyed taking crazy photos with them.

It was another wonderful writing retreat!

 

 

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June: A month of Grant Writing

June is a major deadline for NIH. Given that, HCAT spends most of May and the beginning of June writing and submitting grants. This year, Manu, Chelsea, Jeremy, and I worked on 3 grants (all due mid-June). Two R21 grants, and one P30 grant. It can be exhausting, but the students also learn how to write grants by helping to put together all of the components. SuperPhoto_160517204338

Chamber House Writing Retreat – Fall 2015

HCAT lab held another writing retreat October 8th – 15th, 2015 in Park City, UT. The writing retreat was held at a 5 bedroom house located just above main street in old town (you can rent it here). Courtney and I gave a workshop on writing NIH grants, and we also reviewed vitas and (for…