Rikki Roscoe is a fourth-year doctoral candidate specializing in health communication. Rikki currently teaches Comm 4412 – Gender, Language, & Communication and is a research assistant for Dr. Rebecca Meisenbach. Rikki is interested in researching topics related to stigma, identity, and inequality. Ultimately, she hopes to improve health outcomes for historically excluded groups. Rikki’s research has been published in Health Communication and presented at the National Communication Association (NCA) and Central States Communication Association (CSCA) conferences. In addition, Rikki was selected to present at the 2022 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar at George Mason University. 

In 2022, Rikki was awarded the Steven A. and Susan J. Beebe Doctoral Student Scholarship Endowment from the MU Department of Communication. Rikki has previously been awarded Graduate Student Researcher of the Year (2022), the Graduate Student Service award (2022), and was one of the recipients of the Rebecca Verser Graduate Student Support Fund (2020). 

Rikki is an editorial assistant for Management Communication Quarterly and has previously held roles as secretary for the CSCA health communication interest group, graduate student representative for the Association of Communication Graduate Students (ACGS), and digital media coordinator for the Media and Diversity Center. 

Rikki received her M.A. from South Dakota State University (SDSU) where she won the CSCA Pamela Cooper Award for excellent graduate teaching as a master’s student as well as the Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award which is awarded to the top M.A. thesis by the Graduate School at SDSU. 

In terms of professional experience, Rikki was the Health Equity Intern for the South Dakota Department of Health in the Department of Chronic Disease Prevention & Health Promotion. In this position, she worked on advancing initiatives related to minimizing health disparities and helping all South Dakotans achieve the highest level of health possible.