Mariah L Wellman Ph.D.
Bio
Mariah L Wellman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. She is an expert on social media influencers, wellness rhetoric, and the growth of the wellness industry. Dr. Wellman is particularly interested in how popular users within digital wellness communities build authority with audiences. She has ongoing projects exploring the intersections of wellness and politics, explicating the increased popularity of LDS women influencers, and defining novel ways the wellness industry is repackaging diet culture trends to attract new consumers.
Dr. Wellman is also interested in health communication, specifically the role of social media in the relationship between patients and their healthcare providers. Dr. Wellman’s work studying the online activity of women with the BRCA genetic mutation has been funded by the National Institutes of Health through the Utah Center for Excellence in ELSI (Ethical, Legal, & Social Implications) research.
Her work has been published in New Media & Society, Social Media & Society, Health Communication, Feminist Media Studies, Journal of Media Ethics, and Rhetoric of Health & Medicine.
Before joining Michigan State University, Dr. Wellman received her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Utah and her M.A. in Journalism from the University of Iowa.