Sandi Smith (PhD, Communication, University of Southern California, 1986) is a University Distinguished Professor emerita in the College of Communication Arts & Sciences at Michigan State University and former Director of the Health and Risk Communication Center who has received national and international awards for her research and teaching. She conducts research studies in the areas of social influence, health communication, and interpersonal relationships. Among her many other grants, she was co-principal investigator on a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the effects of liquor advertising on teenage and college student drinking, Co-I on a grant from the Michigan Department of Community Health on antisocial behavior among youth, and co-principal investigator for the U.S. Department of Education Celebration Drinking grant along with Dennis Martell. She has many published, refereed, and well-cited articles that use social norms as a guiding theory, and she is a methodological expert on experimental design, formative evaluation research, and stimulus message manipulation.
