Tamara Afifi

Tamara Afifi studies family communication patterns, such as conflict and social support, across various stressful situations to understand and predict biological stress responses, resilience, and health outcomes. She uses diverse methods, including surveys, longitudinal diary data, lab and field studies, observational coding, biological markers, virtual reality, and qualitative data, often working with hard-to-reach community-based populations. A Fellow of the International Communication Association and Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association, she has edited Communication Monographs and secured funding from agencies like the NIH. She is currently leading a Phase II clinical trial funded by the National Institute on Aging to study the impact of virtual reality on the quality of life of dementia patients and their distant family members. Afifi holds a Ph.D. in Family and Interpersonal Communication from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1999).