Dr. Cailin Kuchenbecker (She/Her/Hers)

Dr. Cailin M. Kuchenbecker is an Instructional Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Chapman University. Her research interests are health and crisis communication, persuasion, and message design. Specifically, Dr. Kuchenbecker investigates messaging strategies to promote public health and safety (e.g., increase sharing behavior of missing person posts) as well as resistance to persuasive appeals (e.g., reduce vaccine hesitancy). 

Dr. Kuchenbecker teaches courses on persuasion theory, research methods, mass communication, and business communication. 

She also serves as a Visiting Research Professional at the Hyundai Cancer Institute within the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Prior to joining the faculty at Chapman University, Dr. Kuchenbecker served as the Digital Marketing Coordinator for the Center for Customer Insights and Digital Marketing at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications:

Kuchenbecker, C. M., & Bevan, J. L. (2023). Let’s talk about death: Applying the disclosure decision-making model to death planning disclosure. Health Communication, 39(7), 1310-1319. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2023.2212132

Kuchenbecker, C. M., & LaBelle, S. (2023). Designing instructional crisis messages for college emergency notification systems: A test of the IDEA model. Communication Studies, 75(1), 59-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2023.2248688

Ball, H., Wozniak, T. R., & Kuchenbecker, C. M. (2023). Shot Talk: Development and preliminary evaluation of a theory of planned behavior campaign to combat college student COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Journal of Health Communication, 28(2), 82-90. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2023.2183438

LaBelle, S., Capra, J., Hellem, A., Kuchenbecker, C., Hodges, A. L., & Murphy, M. K. (2023). The contribution of instructional communication research to teaching-learning beyond the classroom. Communication Education, 7(1), 92-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2022.2137216