Tammy Afifi Is A Co-PI On New NIH Grant For Mental Health and Virtual Reality

2025-09-22

Tammy Afifi, with Nancy Collins in Psychological and Brain Sciences, and with the CEO of the VR company Rendever, have been awarded a $3,809 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The project title is Improving Mental Health and Social Connectivity for Older Adults through Virtual Reality-Based Social Interventions. In this new grant, they are bringing VR into homes across the U.S. They are pairing with a home care provider, Right at Home, whose health aides will be trained how to use the VR with older adults with and without dementia. Their family members will also be taught how to use it (and we will be tracking both of their well-being over time). The older adults will be joining VR sessions remotely with older adults in senior living communities who are already using the Rendever VR platform.

Kyungin Kim Wins NCA Master’s Thesis Award

2025-09-17

Kyungin Kim won the 2025 National Communication Association’s Interpersonal Communication Division Outstanding Thesis Award for her thesis titled: "Undocumented College Students’ Career-Related Communication with Their Parents and the Ecological Vocational Anticipatory Socialization Model".

Casey Randazzo

Assistant Professor
Casey Randazzo

Casey Randazzo investigates how communities use digital platforms and artificial intelligence, such as large language models, to organize collective action. Her research focuses on Human-AI organizing, examining how interactions between humans and AI agents influence disaster response and recovery.

Bio

Casey Randazzo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. Her research investigates how humans organize using communication technologies, with a focus on disaster recovery and response. She examines the roles of humans, AI agents, and discourse in shaping how information flows, tensions are managed, and communities mobilize. Dr. Randazzo draws on computational and qualitative methods, including network analysis, experimental simulations such as generative agent-based modeling, and thematic discourse analysis. Her research program demonstrates how communication processes and emerging technologies influence organizing during times of disruption.

Dr. Randazzo has published in leading journals and proceedings and has presented her work at research conferences spanning communication, computer-human interaction, and social networks. Her scholarship has been recognized with honors, including the 2024 Top Paper Award from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association. At UCSB, Dr. Randazzo teaches courses on organizational communication, technology, and social networks.

Education

Ph.D. (2025), Rutgers University, Department of Communication

Master’s (2021), Rutgers University, School of Communication and Information

B.S. (2013), Cornell University, Department of Communication

Coursework toward B.S., Raritan Valley Community College, Department of Communication

RandazzoCV.pdf312.88 KB
Contact
caseyrandazzo@ucsb.edu
Office: SSMS 4121
Google Scholar
Personal Website
Twitter
Research Topic(s)
Collective Action
Computer-Mediated Communication
Social Media
Technology in Organizations
The Future of Work
Research Area(s)
Organizational & Group Communication
Media and Digital Communication
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