How do people decide what information to trust, what actions to take, and what a place, organization, or technology means?
Communication is often described as the transmission of information. While information is important, I believe communication is fundamentally about something deeper: the creation of shared meaning.
Every environment, organization, and technology communicates meaning.
Long before someone reads a report, attends a meeting, or speaks with a representative, they have already begun interpreting the messages conveyed by buildings, websites, symbols, policies, interfaces, workflows, and everyday interactions.
These designed experiences influence what people notice, what they believe, whom they trust, and ultimately how they behave.
My research examines how communication emerges from the interaction between people and the systems they inhabit. Rather than viewing communication as a standalone activity, I study it as a property of designed social, organizational, technological, and environmental systems.
A Design Ecology Perspective
One of the central ideas guiding my work is that design is never neutral.
Every design decision changes the conditions under which communication, understanding, and meaning occur. A public space influences social interaction. A website shapes how information is discovered. A software interface determines which choices are visible and which remain hidden. A neighborhood communicates belonging—or exclusion—before anyone says a word.
Policies signal institutional priorities. Visual symbols reinforce cultural identity.
Communication does not occur within or layered on top of these environments. It is produced through them. Understanding these forms of symbolic communication is essential for improving how organizations engage stakeholders, how communities coordinate action, and how people make decisions under uncertainty.
Research Themes
My work in communication, meaning, and designed systems explores questions such as:
- How do physical, digital, and organizational environments shape human behavior?
- How do symbols influence identity, belonging, and public perception?
- What makes information trustworthy in complex systems?
- How do people interpret risk during periods of uncertainty?
- How can communication reduce cognitive burden rather than increase it?
- How do interfaces influence decision-making?
- What role does design play in public trust?
- How do communication systems influence collaboration across organizations and sectors?
These questions draw upon strategic communication, environmental symbology, human-computer interaction, environmental psychology, systems thinking, and design research to better understand how communication functions across complex human systems.
Why This Matters
Many of today’s most significant challenges are not caused by a lack of information. Information is everywhere. Communities receive emergency alerts. Researchers publish scientific findings. Governments release guidance. Organizations develop strategic plans.
Yet information alone rarely changes behavior.
People act based on what they understand, what they trust, what they remember, and what they experience. Improving communication therefore requires more than producing better messages. It requires designing environments and experiences that help people make sense of complexity, coordinate with others, and translate knowledge into action.
Whether addressing disaster preparedness, public health, environmental stewardship, organizational change, or emerging technologies, communication becomes one of the primary mechanisms through which societies adapt.
Current Areas of Inquiry
My current work explores communication across multiple interconnected domains, including:
- Strategic communication and stakeholder engagement
- Environmental symbology and the communication of place
- Human-computer interaction and information design
- Research translation and evidence-informed decision-making
- Risk and crisis communication
- Community resilience and adaptive capacity
- Organizational communication and institutional trust
- One Health and environmental communication
Together, these areas contribute to a broader research framework I call Design Ecology—an interdisciplinary approach that examines how designed environments influence communication, adaptation, and resilience across human systems.
Looking Forward
As communication technologies continue to evolve, the central challenge is no longer producing more information. It is helping people understand, trust, and use information effectively. My research seeks to develop practical frameworks that help organizations, communities, and institutions communicate in ways that strengthen collaboration, improve decision-making, and build adaptive capacity.
Ultimately, I believe communication is not simply how information moves through systems. It is how systems signal us to learn, coordinate, and adapt.