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Bhakti Chavda

Bhakti Chavda

Office and Contact

Office hours: Fall 2023: Zoom by Appointment

Email: bchavda@purdue.edu

Biography

Bhakti is a doctoral candidate in Health Communication at Purdue University’s Brian Lamb School of Communication. Originally from India, Bhakti graduated with a bachelor’s in biotechnology engineering from The University of Mumbai and a Master of Science in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania. Bhakti has previously worked for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Wharton School on projects that honed her skills in Public Health and Health Policy Research. She was also a Summer Associate at RAND Corporation in 2022 wherein she worked on an NIAID project looking at COVID-19 misinformation spread among emergency care physicians and nurses.

 

Research and Teaching

Bhakti is a mixed methods researcher focused on improving health outcomes among understudied communities internationally. Currently, she is leading two projects in India. The first looks at how one can design effective messages to improve HPV vaccine information-seeking in parents of girls aged 9-17 in the country. For her second project, Bhakti is studying how food videos on social media can influence the consumption behaviors of young Indian adults. Previously, Bhakti designed communication materials for the CDC-funded Indiana Healthy Opportunities for People Everyone (I-HOPE) initiative. Bhakti has presented her work at conferences such as the National Communication Association (NCA), and the International Communication Association (ICA), and will also be a presenter at the American Public Health Association (APHA) Conference in October 2024. She has publications in the Journal of Health Communication and the International Encyclopedia of Health Communication.

Bhakti has served as the instructor of record for courses such as Science Writing and Presentation, Intro to Health Communication, and Interviewing Principles and Practices.

 

Awards:

  1. Purdue 3 Minute thesis finalist (Top 10) in 2024
  2. Global Synergy Grant (2022)
  3. PROMISE Award (Spring 2023 and Spring 2024)
  4. Michael Haley Travel Grant (2024) awarded by the International Communication Association
  5. Charles Stewart Dissertation Award