About
Rebecca Katherine Ivic, Ph.D., is Associate Dean of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity and Professor of Health Communication at The University of Alabama. Her work addresses a central challenge of contemporary public life: the trust and integrity of health communication and information across digital platforms, public institutions, and civic contexts. Rather than treating health communication as messaging or persuasion, her scholarship examines the standards, evidence, and institutional conditions that shape whether health information is reliable, usable, and worthy of trust. Across more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and nearly $2 million in funded research, her work advances understanding of health communication, health literacy, and information quality at national and global levels.
Impact Beyond the University
A central focus of Dr. Ivic’s current work is the development of evidence-based indicators of quality health information. She is a Commissioner and leads the Co-Secretariat for the Nature Medicine Commission on Quality Health Information for All, where she provides leadership for a global research effort to define, test, and advance indicators that can be applied across sectors and contexts. This work supports governance, institutional practice, and emerging certification efforts related to the quality of health information. Dr. Ivic also contributes to global initiatives as a member of the World Health Organization Information Integrity Alliance.
Dr. Ivic plays a significant leadership role in the field as an Editor. She is the Executive Editor of the Journal of Health Communication, the leading international Q1 journal publishing research, now in its fourth decade.
A Passion for Mentorship and Research Development
As Associate Dean of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity, Dr. Ivic is deeply committed to supporting faculty research and creative work across the college. She oversees the college’s research portfolio and develops and leads internal funding programs, grant development and review processes, and the Research and Creative Committee to align resources with faculty priorities and long-term scholarly goals. Her work emphasizes collaboration across disciplines and scholarship with relevance in and beyond the university.