Dr. Lynsey K. Romo

Building upon six years of real-world communication experience, Dr. Lynsey K. Romo uses her work as an interpersonal and health communication scholar to improve health and economic conditions for low-income individuals. Her socially meaningful research examines how people communicate about uncomfortable issues specifically pertaining to health and finances.

Dr. Romo largely explores how communication can affect people’s health decisions. She studies how families can encourage one another to engage in healthy weight management behaviors (for example, healthy eating or exercise) and the effects families have on one another’s weight management. She has also examined how people who engage in healthy deviance (violating norms in healthy ways, a concept which emerged from her research) negotiate communication about these behaviors. Through her research, Dr. Romo has uncovered strategies to encourage and produce healthy behaviors in families as a whole, such as abstaining from alcohol or switching to a vegetarian diet, while maintaining interpersonal relationships.

Dr. Romo is also at the forefront of interpersonal financial communication scholarship. Her focus on finances, together with health, is united by its examination of the uncertainty involved in managing one’s physical, social, or economic well-being while negotiating disclosure and/or multiple goals.

Discussing money issues is a fundamental communication practice, but strong academic research is lacking. Dr. Romo is working to fill the gap. She has interviewed parents and children about what motivates disclosure of financial information and uncovered what financial information children are learning. She has also examined the ways in which married or cohabitating adults negotiate financial uncertainty in the wake of recessions. Dr. Romo seeks to illuminate practical communication tools for managing finances and relationships.

Dr. Romo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at N.C. State University. She has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles aimed at helping people improve their lives and relationships through communication. Visit her faculty page for a list of publications.