I help people understand how to strategically measure their media products and apply that knowledge toward goals and objectives. Even more, I teach others to understand how to do their own analysis, with a focus on making usable meaning from the findings.

I've worked in many aspects of media, from being an award-winning student journalist, to working in magazine, and on into a variety of public relations contexts. My interest in acquiring a deeper understanding of how people use media led to my acquiring two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in mass communication. Among my published works are a master's thesis about the audience and uses of sports live-streaming from the early days of that practice, to my dissertation that used a variety of data sources and multilevel modeling to show the effect declining amounts of news coverage has had on community health. But I've always been drawn to practical industry research, including analysis on changing audience trends and media uses for the Minnesota Broadcasters Association to building a model to predict convention attendance at different sites for the National Scholastic Press Association. Along the way, I've written instructional materials for audiences as diverse as children classified as reluctant readers to guides for news producers trying to better implement search engine optimization on their sites. I've most recently extended out to social media, both learning and teaching others to understand how and why people choose to follow the brands and organizations they do, and how to use analytics to make strategic decisions to meet organizational objectives.

I enjoy diverse challenges and solving problems by finding new sources of datas and unique ways of combining data sources to find new meaning. My current projects involve better understanding the what leads to social media engagement — and how that can be used for science-based organizations and brands to build understanding in the public.