https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1939-7266
Dr. Terri N. Hernandez is an Associate Professor of Public Relations in the Department of Communication, Media & Theatre at Mississippi State University, where she also serves as the Public Relations Concentration Coordinator. Her research explores the intersections of social and digital media, intergroup and intragroup relations, and consumer behavior, with a focus on organization–public relationships, branding, and strategic communication. She has years of experience working with social media datasets, applying quantitative and qualitative methodologies to explore the data. Further, her scholarship spans both theoretical and applied domains, integrating insights from social science with professional practice, such as user experience design in websites and other digital applications. Her collaborative work with the NSF and MSU’s SSRC has expanded her expertise into large-scale data analytics, machine learning, and interdisciplinary research infrastructure. In particular, her recent NSF-funded projects involve building data repositories and developing methods to analyze social media data, addressing challenges such as restricted access to platforms like X (formerly Twitter). By creating accessible research tools, she aims to support scholars in examining critical social phenomena, including the spread of misinformation and public sentiment during crises. Dr. Hernandez’s work has appeared in leading journals, including the Journal of Consumer Marketing, Social Media and Society, and Computers & Human Behavior. She has co-authored multiple peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and her creative scholarship has earned more than 30 professional awards from PR associations, including SPRF and PRAM.
Contribution to Project: Co-PI, Dr. Terri Hernandez (Communication & UX Design Social Scientist), brings a unique interdisciplinary background that bridges strategic communication, user experience design and evaluation, and applied social media research. Her expertise in human-centered design and digital communication was critical to shaping the tool’s overall architecture, interface, and user engagement strategy. Dr. Hernandez previously developed and managed the COPE-ID and DS3 websites, projects closely associated with the DataViz tool, demonstrating her ability to translate complex research goals into intuitive, accessible digital platforms. Within this project, Dr. Hernandez played a central role in leading the conceptualization, design, and iterative refinement of the tool’s webpage and application interface—ensuring the tool was responsive to social media researchers needs and grounded in best practices for conducting social science research, particularly research conducted using methods such as content analysis and textual analysis. She collaborated closely with team members Jacob Adams and Madeline Burdine to ensure the interface was not only functional but also user-friendly and aligned with the project’s intended audiences, all of which leaned into best practices in UX design and accessibility. Her leadership extended through the user evaluation phases—from early-stage design prototyping through the final evaluation, where she oversaw the development and implementation of testing protocols, analyzed user feedback, and facilitated evidence-based enhancements to the tool.