Young Anna Argyris is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. She researches the design, development and use of information technology for public health campaigns, and studies the health misinformation propagated via social media and its negative impact on the use of COVID-19, HPV and adolescent immunizations. 

Argyris uses “visual congruence” — the similarity of visual elements used in posts for interpersonal communication on social media  — to measure social influence and create social media campaigns to counteract health misinformation. Her research projects include reviewing social media interventions about vaccines; developing a vaccine informatics system to counteract the negative impact of misinformation on digital platforms; using AI-powered communication to increase vaccination rates among adolescents; studying COVID-19 preventative information avoidance; and collecting analytics on the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on pro- and anti-vaccine sentiment online. 

Previously, Argyris was an assistant professor at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University and a visiting scholar at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Argyris has received several research grants, including a R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a measure of the quality and quantity of vaccine debates on social media and their impact on public health. Her work is published in several academic journals, including Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Interactive Marketing and JMIR Public Health and Surveillance.

She has a Ph.D in management information systems from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

Photo Courtesy of Young Anna Argyris

Pronouns: She/her

Expertise: Social media, information technology, health misinformation, vaccines

Location: East Lansing, Mich.

Email: argyris@msu.edu 

Heard on KSHB: “In-depth: How social media influences opinions on COVID-19 vaccines”