معرفی
Emily M. Buehler is an Assistant Professor of Interpersonal Communication and Social Media in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, where she has been faculty since Fall 2019. She is a core member of the Purdue Steps to Leaps Research Collaborative, translating research on social support into student well-being initiatives. Her work bridges interpersonal communication theory with digital media practices.
Dr. Buehler's academic journey includes:
- Ph.D. in Interpersonal Communication and Relationships from the University of Iowa (2018)
- M.A. in Communication from Wake Forest University (2014)
- B.A. in English from Ohio Northern University (2007)
Her research centers on how personal and social media transform supportive communication dynamics, examining anonymity, visibility, channel publicness, and relational factors in online support exchanges. She investigates how technology both enables and constrains effective social support provision and reception across contexts from grief to chronic illness management. Her approach integrates communication interdependence theory with computer-mediated communication frameworks to reveal nuanced technological affordances.
Analysis of her 13 publications (2017-2025) reveals consistent focus on support-seeking message design across platforms, particularly Facebook and emerging social technologies. Key trends include the impact of channel characteristics on message sophistication, the role of gratitude in support reception, and how norm violations affect online help-seeking. Her work spans health communication, family dynamics, and online dating contexts, consistently published in top-tier journals like Communication Monographs and Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Dr. Buehler has received significant recognition for her teaching excellence:
- Purdue’s College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher (2023)
As an advisor, she mentors graduate students in interpersonal and computer-mediated communication research, emphasizing goal-setting and intellectual independence. She actively advises Purdue's Association for Women in Communication and has volunteered over 15 years with HOBY leadership programs for high school students, guiding youth in community problem-solving. Her teaching portfolio includes undergraduate courses on interpersonal communication and graduate seminars on relationships and technology.
Through the Purdue Steps to Leaps Research Collaborative, she applies her findings to develop campus-wide well-being initiatives, directly connecting her scholarship to student support systems in the digital age.
