Carma L. Bylund, PhD, FACH
Professor, Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics
College of Medicine
University of Florida
Lab Members
Gemme Campbell, Ph.D.
Gemme Campbell-Salome, PhD, is a health, family, and interpersonal communication scientist, with a special focus in the contexts of cancer, hereditary cancer, and hereditary heart conditions. Dr. Campbell-Salome studies the persistent influence of family on individual health decision-making, with the aim of designing and testing health communication interventions at the individual, family, and clinician levels. Her work in health communication interventions includes developing chatbots using AI (artificial intelligence) to communicate with individuals and families about hereditary disease risks, optimizing communication methods for individuals to share risk information with family, and designing patient-centered informative tools. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, she investigates the relationship between family communication about disease and health outcomes such as cascade testing and medical adherence.
Her research also explores psychosocial and relational outcomes of family and health communication such as resilience, uncertainty management, narrative sense-making, and family communication environments. When not working, Gemme enjoys testing new recipes in the kitchen as well as trying new foods, hiking and cuddling her three dogs (Benji, Betsy, & Chip).
Chelsea Hampton, M.A., M.S.W. (She/her/hers)
Chelsea N. Hampton, MA, MSW, BSW, is an incoming PhD student focusing on health communication at the University of Florida. She completed her Master of Social Work and Global Social Work Certificate at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana before pursuing a path in communications and gained experience working within various health-related contexts, including community behavioral health.
Chelsea developed a passion early on for health promotion and literacy, which led her to getting involved in efforts such as reproductive health and education in Wyoming and Louisiana, helping to develop a Disaster Health Services Committee comprised of healthcare workers for the American Red Cross of Southeast Louisiana, and ultimately working as Project Coordinator for Wyoming AgrAbility. Understanding how communication was at the core of these experiences and its importance in helping to facilitate behavior change, Chelsea opted to pursue further graduate study in this area and later completed her MA in Journalism and Mass Communications, with a specialization in Integrated Media Communications, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Her research interests include the application of communication strategies within healthcare contexts, use of digital/social media for health promotion and well-being, women's health, and fostering resilience. In her free time, she enjoys health and fitness pursuits, especially running races, and has a passion for travel. Some of her most memorable moments thus far include running her first half marathon in the Czech Republic, climbing Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, and becoming a newlywed.
Amanda Kastrinos, M.A.
Amanda Kastrinos is a doctoral candidate specializing in health communication at the University of Florida. As a health and family communication scholar, her primary research focus is examining caregiving communication from a lifespan developmental perspective.
Amanda’s dissertation explores family communication and coping in the cancer context, particularly the impact of cancer type, disease trajectory, and family member’s place in the lifespan on the family’s communication support needs. She is a mixed-method scholar with experience in multiple areas of health communication research, including patient-provider communication in rural communities, genetic testing and mental health, and HPV vaccine uptake.
In Dr. Bylund's CH Lab, Amanda has worked on several health communication projects. She has recently first authored two papers on the diagnosis experience of blood cancer caregivers from a project funded by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Carolan Research Institute, and a paper on pharmacogenomics (PGx) testing in psychiatry patients. During the pandemic, Amanda honed the fine art of bread baking.
Samantha Paige, PhD, MPH, CHES®
Michaela D. Mullis, M.A.
Michaela D. Mullis is a current doctoral student in the Family·Health·Lifespan Communication Lab at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on communicating through divorce with a focus on enhancing family resilience through spousal, parent-child, and lawyer-client communication. Implementing both a critical and interpretive lens, she utilizes multi-method qualitative designs with supplemental quantitative approaches. She collaborates with family lawyers, judges, mediators, and collaborative law professionals to translate her research into practice for families.
As a student, she has worked on research projects that aim to sustain family health and resilience across the lifespan through various contexts. This includes NIH funded research on mother-daughter breast cancer communication and environmental risk factors, multiple studies on family caregiving and blood cancers with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and Department of Defense funded research on family health in the military across lifespan transitions. She has also conducted systematic reviews on family barriers to sexual health communication and divorce communication interventions. She has presented her work at various conferences including the National Communication Association, International Communication Association, and D.C. Health Communication.
Samantha R. Paige, PhD, MPH, CHES® is a transdisciplinary health behavior scientist with formal training in translational health communication and health education. Dr. Paige studies how to harness innovative technologies to promote the uptake of evidence-based practices that reduce behavioral and geographic disparities in serious illnesses. Recognizing that communication is at the root of all health behaviors and decisions, she strives to optimize communication among and between patients, families, and clinicians in negotiating the uptake of these practices. Her research has a strong focus on health information equity, including the measurement and optimization of eHealth literacy. She is skilled in mixed-methods approaches, and she has specialized training in the design and evaluation of health message interventions to support behavior change. Dr. Paige's research has been supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH/NHLBI) fellowships and she has nearly 50 peer-reviewed publications in multi-disciplinary journals.
Samantha lives in upstate New York's Adirondack Park. When she's not working, she enjoys the beautiful mountainous view with her family and their three dogs (Luigi, Dani, and Fitzy). Samantha builds physical activity into her daily routine to keep balance. She loves to run, spin, and practice yoga.
Taylor Vasquez, M.A.
Taylor S. Vasquez is a first-year doctoral student in the Communication in Healthcare Lab at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on doctor-patient communication, stress and burnout within graduate medical education, and interpersonal communication within health contexts. Prior to beginning her Ph.D., she received her undergraduate degree in public relations and graduate degree in mass communication from the University of Florida. Her thesis, Skills-Based Programs Used to Reduce Burnout in Graduate Medical Education: A Systematic Review, was presented at the 2020 Kentucky Conference on Health Communication and is in the process of getting published.
In the Communication in Healthcare Lab, she has worked on various research studies including a communication skills training systematic review, how patients utilize and search for online health information, and the adult children's experiences with family and
health communication caring for parents with blood cancer.
In her free time, she sews, crochets, and paints for her online art shop. She is also a licensed skydiver and skydiving coach with over 250 jumps. She loves to go to the gym, walk with her dog Apollo, and work on projects around the house.
Easton N. Wollney, M.A.
Easton N. Wollney is a doctoral candidate at The University of Florida studying health decision-making, uncertainty, family communication, and provider-patient/provider-patient-family communication, primarily in the context of chronic and non-communicable diseases across the lifespan. She primarily uses mixed-methods and qualitative designs to answer her research questions. Her dissertation research is focused on triadic communication in clinical encounters about dementia.
Easton published her master’s thesis in Visual Communication Quarterly analysis. In that study, she explicates ideological points about wartime gender relations and points to the objectification of women’s bodies as implied sexual rewards for product purchase in WWII. She has also presented her work at leading conferences like AEJMC, ICCH, AMHCR, and the CDC’s National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media. In 2019, she was one of 30 PhD students competitively selected to participate in the National Communication Association (NCA) Doctoral Honors Seminar.
In Dr. Bylund's Lab, Easton is working as a research assistant on a Florida-state funded study on diagnosis communication in dementia.