Rate My Professor Meghan Moran

Meghan Moran is a health communication scholar. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania (2003), an MA (2007), and a PhD (2009) from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Following her doctoral studies, Moran served as Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University from 2009 to 2014. During this period, she engaged with the Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age, delivering lightning talks on adolescent subcultures—such as skaters, jocks, goths, and nerds—and their effects on health behaviors.

Moran's research focuses on persuasion processes, narrative transportation, social norms, and media influences on health outcomes, with applications in tobacco control, vaccination, and cancer prevention. Notable publications from her SDSU tenure include "Involved, transported, or emotional? Exploring the determinants of change in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior in entertainment-education" (Journal of Communication, 2011); "Hidden addiction: television" (Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2013, co-authored with Steve Sussman); "Low-income minority seniors' enrollment in a cybercafé: psychological barriers to crossing the digital divide" (Educational Gerontology, 2010); "Translating the link between social identity and health behavior into effective health communication strategies: An experimental application using antismoking advertisements" (Health Communication, 2014); and "Tamale Lesson: A case study of a narrative health communication intervention" (Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 2014). These works highlight her contributions to narrative-based health interventions and ecological approaches to health communication.

Subsequently, at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, she serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society, advancing research on tobacco marketing regulation, vaccine promotion strategies, and cancer screening communication. She received the Public Health Education and Health Promotion (PHEHP) Early Career Award from the American Public Health Association in 2018.