Maria D. Molina
Bio
Maria D. Molina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Advertising & Public Relations. She received her PhD in Mass Communications from The Pennsylvania State University.
Her research examines online persuasion in the contexts of digital health, misinformation, and online privacy. Broadly, her work focuses on the role of technological affordances in shaping user attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, her research centers on: (1) how technological affordances motivate socially beneficial behaviors such as learning and engaging in physical activity; (2) how platform and design features facilitate the sharing of negative or harmful content; and (3) how users respond to AI-driven tools that act as sources of communication, such as systems that filter user-generated content or generate content on users’ behalf.
Dr. Molina’s current research is supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER grant examining how the affordances of Generative AI (GenAI) chatbots shape users’ privacy decision-making and how AI systems can be designed using privacy-by-design principles.
Her research has been published in leading human–computer interaction venues, including CHI (CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), as well as top mass communication journals such as New Media & Society and Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
Research and Teaching
- Sharing Online
- Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction
- AI-Human Interaction
- Media Effects
- Social Media
- Digital Health
- Fake News
