Rikki Roscoe

Rikki A. Roscoe (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. Rikki is a critical-interpretive scholar who investigates stigma, identity, and inequity as they impact health communication and organizing. She is particularly interested in how stigma, when understood as an inherently power-laden communication process, impacts health and creates health inequities in a variety of contexts, including mental health and sexual and reproductive health. Through this work, Rikki hopes to improve health outcomes for underserved communities. Her scholarship has been published in a variety of journals, including Health Communication, Journal of Health Communication, Frontiers in Communication, and Communication Studies. She has presented her research at the National Communication Association (NCA) and Central States Communication Association (CSCA) conferences. In 2022, she was selected to present at the NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar at George Mason University. Her scholarship has been funded by the Beebe Doctoral Student Scholarship Endowment (2022) and Verser Graduate Student Support Fund (2020). 

At KU, Rikki teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in health communication, organizational communication, and qualitative research methods. In addition, Rikki has previously taught courses on gendered communication.

Rikki was recently awarded the Abbey [Promise] Alumni Award from the University of Minnesota Crookston, where she attained her undergraduate degree as a first-generation college student and Pell Grant recipient. The Abbey Award recognizes alumni who have shown evidence of "sowing the seeds" to create transformative change to better humanity - to improve the lives of individuals, communities, or the world through their positive work. Further, as a Ph.D. student, Rikki was awarded the Distinguished Dissertation in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (2024), the Loren Reid Teaching Award (2023), the Graduate Student Mentor Award (2023), the Graduate Student Researcher Award (2022), and the Graduate Student Service Award (2022). As an M.A. student, Rikki was awarded the CSCA Pamela Cooper Award for excellent graduate teaching as well as the Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award, which is awarded to the top M.A. thesis by the Graduate School.

Rikki served as an editorial assistant for Management Communication Quarterly for four years and as the secretary for the CSCA health communication interest group (2022). 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.