Dominican receives Ph.D. in Mass Communication

Dominican Diane B. Francis recently earned a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (May, 2016). In August 2016, Dr. Francis will be joining the faculty at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA as an Assistant Professor.

A native of Kings Hill, Dr. Francis attended St. Martin’s Primary School and Convent High School before emigrating to the United States during Second Form. She credits her start in Dominica as motivating her to succeed academically.

She also credits her maternal grandmother (Mary Bellot, now deceased) and her paternal grandfather (Oscar Francis) for being instrumental is her success.

“My grandmother gave me my start in life. She helped raise me from when I was a baby and helped take care of me until the day I left for the U.S.,” Dr. Francis said. “My grandfather on the other hand gave me the re-start I needed. I dropped out of college in January 2002 after only one semester. I spent two and a half years trying to find my way back. In 2004, I applied for and was accepted to the University of the Virgin Islands. My grandfather provided a home for me to stay while I attended school. I have been in a forward motion since then.”

In 2007, she received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas campus. Dr. Francis also earned dual master’s degrees in Global Media and Communication from the University of Southern California and London School of Economics and Political Science in 2010.

“I went to UVI to study Mass Communication and not really knowing what I was going to do afterwards. I discovered communication research while there,” Dr. Francis said. “However, the research that my professors were doing wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Dr. Francis said she liked the fields of strategic communication and public relations, and worked at Reichhold Center for Arts on St. Thomas. But she said, “I also knew that I didn’t want to spend my life pursuing that career.” She went on, “I’m really good knowing what I don’t want to do. It takes me longer to get to what I do want to do. But when I find what I want, I pursue it zealously.”

It was during the first year of her two-year master’s degree that Dr. Francis learned about social and behavior change communication—both the practice and research approaches.

During the second year of the program, while at USC, she delved deeper into health communication research. “Once I discovered health communication, particularly the application of strategic communication to address health-related behaviors, I was hooked. I’m fascinated by how we can use traditional and new media and communication technologies to effect change in the world.”

After earning her master’s degrees, Dr. Francis worked as a research assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine Center for Infectious Diseases. There, she worked on an HIV prevention mass media campaign.

It was during that time that she met world-renowned researchers not only in health communication but across medicine, public health and psychology. Two faculty members who were part of that project encouraged her to join the Ph.D. program at UNC, and she enrolled in fall 2012.

Today, Dr. Francis’ conducts research on health communication, with implications for addressing health disparities/health inequities. Her work covers health message development and evaluation, health campaigns, and persuasive communication, and spans a range of health topics, including HIV/sexually transmitted infections (STIs) prevention, human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccinations, tobacco control and prevention and cancer survivorship.

Her dissertation, “Evaluation of an innovative condom distribution program and point-of-access messaging targeting Black college women,” examined issues around access to condoms as a public health issue on a Historically Black College campus. She designed and implemented a safer sex intervention that included condom distribution and health messages to encourage sexually active young women to be more proactive about their sexual health. These young women are often at risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Dr. Francis (along with her advisor) was awarded a $30,000 grant from the UNC Center for AIDS Research to conduct this project.

Her research has been published in numerous high-quality peer-reviews journals, including Journal of Health Communication, Social Science and Medicine, Games for Health Research, Health Education Journal, and Tobacco Control.

While pursuing her doctorate, Dr. Francis received numerous awards. She was a Roy H. Park Fellow, a designation which includes full funding and a stipend to conduct research and attend academic conferences. She was also a pre-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health-funded Center for Regulatory Research on Tobacco Communications. In 2015 she was awarded the Barrow Minority Doctoral Student Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. In 2016, she was named the Outstanding Ph.D. student for her program.

“I am the epitome of the saying ‘it’s doesn’t matter where or how you start, it’s where you end up that matters’. My journey to a Ph.D. and academic career was in no way easy. There were many obstacles at each stage. I was able to use each obstacle as a way to move forward. I was also fortunate to have an amazing global village along this journey—my family, friends, colleagues and mentors. I hope to pay it forward and serve as a mentor to other young people seeking similar paths.”

Dr. Francis is the daughter of Corinthia Samuel of Kings Hill, now residing in Antigua, and Harold Francis of Kings Hill, now residing in North Carolina.