Murrow College of Communication where she directs the Communication Emotion and Cognition Lab. Her research program seeks to explicate the complex interactions between relevant individual, environmental and media characteristics during media use which have significant downstream effects on important human behaviors (e.g. decision making, behavior change). Her research program is rooted in evolutionary perspectives including embodied, situated cognition and motivated cognition. Much of her current research focuses on how food cues in media interact with individual differences (e.g. diet, current hunger, eating motivations, and motivational reactivity) to alter dynamic processing, attitudes toward different types of foods and behavioral choices of what to consume.