Vicki Freimuth is Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia where she was Director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication and held a joint appointment as a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. She received her B.S. from Eastern Illinois University, her M.A. from the University of Iowa, and her Ph.D. from Florida State University. . Before joining the faculty at the University of Georgia, she served as Director of Communication at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Her research focuses on health communication, specifically the role of communication in health behavior change programs. She is author of Searching for Health Information, co-editor of two books on HIV/AIDS and communication, and author of chapters in several major books on health communication. Her research has appeared in such journals as Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Health Communication, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, and Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases. She has received grants from the CDC and the National Cancer Institute. She has served on the editorial boards of several journals including the Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, and the Journal of Health Communication. She received an honorary doctorate from Emerson College in 2010 and won a Distinguished Career Award from the American Association of Public Health in 2003. She was selected as the first Outstanding Health Communication Scholar by the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association and was selected as the Woman of the Year at the University of Maryland in 1990.