Bio:
Melinda R. Weathers is a third-year PhD candidate in Health Communication at George Mason University (GMU). She completed her MA in Health Communication at the University of Houston, where her research focused on exploring communication competence, social support, perceived coping, and religious coping among Hispanic family members caring for loved ones with Alzheimer's disease. Currently, Melinda is a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Department of Communication at GMU, where she teaches courses in interpersonal and intercultural communication. She is also a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Communication and is working with an interdisciplinary research team at GMU’s Center for Climate Change Communication on a grant proposal designed to mobilize citizen support for climate stabilization and adaptation policies. Recently, she worked with a team of GMU faculty members and graduate students to prepare a grant proposal on developing and validating motivational message interventions for improving prescription drug adherence among consumers with chronic diseases for Merck Inc. Her varied research interests include consumer-provider communication, environmental communication, and intercultural communication. Melinda is author or co-author on five publications with three journal articles in-press, and her graduate work has been presented at numerous conferences at the state, regional, national, and international levels. She was recently awarded the Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award by the Communication and Aging Division at the 2008 annual meeting of the National Communication Association, the Top Paper Award by the Health Communication Division at the 2009 annual meeting of the Central States Communication Association, and the 2009 Outstanding PhD Student Award by the Department of Communication at GMU. This summer, Melinda was invited to join the National Science Foundation’s Pan American Advanced Studies Institute program focusing on climate change and hazards in the Americas in Panama City, Panama.
Education:
BA ('03), Speech Communication, Texas A&M University
MA ('08), Health Communication, University of Houston
Selected publications:
Ledford, C. J. W., Villagran, M. M., Kreps, G. L., Zhao, X., McHorney, C., Weathers, M. R., & Keefe, B. (in-press). “Practicing medicine”: A grounded theory of patients’ perceptions of physician communication and its influence on medication adherence. Patient Education and Counseling.
Kreps, G.L. Villagran, M.M., Zhao, X., McHorney, C., Ledford, C., & Weathers, M. R. (in-press). Developing and implementing pharmacy-based communication interventions to promote medication adherence for consumers with chronic health problems. Patient Education and Counseling.
Kreps, G.L. Villagran, M.M., Zhao, X., McHorney, C., Ledford, C., & Weathers, M. R. (in-press). Applying consumer psychology to develop and validate motivational message interventions for improving prescription drug adherence with consumers confronting chronic diseases: A multimethodological field study. In R. Batra, P. Anand, & V. Strecher. (Eds.). Consumer psychology and health communication. M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
Akerloff, K., DeBono, R., Berry, P., Leiserowitz, A., Roser-Renouf, C., Clarke, K., Rogaeva, A., Nisbet, M. C., Weathers, M. R., & Maibach, E. W. (2010). Public perceptions of climate change as a human health risk: Surveys of the United States, Canada and Malta. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 7(6), 2559-2606.
Villagran, M. M., Weathers, M. R., Keefe, B., & Sparks, L. (2010). Medical providers as global warming and climate change (GWCC) health educators: A health literacy approach. Communication Education, 59(3), 312-327.
Weathers, M. R. (2010). Health care providers: The missing link in educating patients about the public health risks of climate change. Article published on UPI.com.
Query, J. L., & Wright, K. B., Amason, P., Eichhorn, K., & Weathers, M. R. (2008). Using quantitative methods to conduct applied communication research. For L. R. Frey and K. Cissna (Eds.), Handbook of applied communication theory, research, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates.
Curriculum vitae:
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Contact:
mweathe1@gmu.edu
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