Jacqueline N. Gunning

Education

Ph.D., University of Connecticut

M.A., University of Nebraska – Lincoln

B.S., Emerson College

About Me

Jacqueline N. Gunning (Ph.D., University of Connecticut) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Auburn University. Her research is situated at the intersection of interpersonal and health communication, focusing on how individuals navigate difficult conversations about health and how those interactions shape well-being and reproduce or resist broader systems of power. Her work primarily, although not exclusively, utilizes qualitative methodologies (e.g., interviewing, narrative audio messaging, arts-based body mapping) and analysis techniques (e.g., thematic analysis, contrapuntal analysis) and adopts interpretive and critical assumptions. To date, she has authored 26 peer-reviewed journal articles and eight book chapters, with her work appearing in journals such as Health Communication, Social Science & Medicine, and Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Her research has received multiple top paper awards from the National Communication Association and has been funded by the Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society at Villanova University, the Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication, and the Collaborative to Advance Equity through Research on Girls and Women of Color.

Research Interests

Health Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Chronic Illness and Disability, Health Inequities

Publications

• Gunning, J. N. (2026). Cycles of (dis)engagement: A qualitative meta-synthesis of the (health)care-seeking experiences of patients with chronic symptoms following Lyme disease. Health Communication, 41(2), 303–319.
• Gunning, J. N., Boateng, S. N., Romann, L. R., & Hintz, E. A. (2025). Credibility work in disenfranchising patient-clinician conversations for mono/multiracial women of color with autoimmune disease in the U.S. Social Science & Medicine, 382, 118373.
• Gunning, J. N., Cardwell, M. E., & Minniear, M. (2025). The autoimmune library: An arts-based approach to women of color’s (counter)narratives of chronic illness. Health Communication, 40(13), 2783–2796.
• Gunning, J. N., Denes, A., Hintz, E. A., & Tucker, R. V. (2025). Implicit sexual beliefs and relational thriving in new romantic relationships facing imagined sexual dysfunction: The mediating role of sexual communal strength. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 48(8), 2099–2120. 
• Gunning, J. N., Romann, L. R., & Hintz, E. A. (2024). Framing chronic pain in U.S. news coverage of the opioid epidemic (2012-2022). Health Communication, 39(13), 3122–3133. 
• Gunning, J. N., & Taladay-Carter, C. (2024). Grieving “the death of possibility”: Memorable messages of (dis)enfranchised loss in invisible, physical illness. Health Communication, 39(10), 2152–2162.
• Gunning, J. N., & Koenig Kellas, J. (2024). “Being sick does not define you”: Communicated narrative sense-making of autoimmune disease in emerging adult women in the U.S. Emerging Adulthood, 12(2), 163–270. 
• Gunning, J. N. (2023). “But you don’t look sick:” Memorable messages of emerging adulthood autoimmune disease. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 40(6), 2008–2030. 

For full list of publications, please see Google Scholar, ResearchGate, or ORCiD.

Courses Taught

COMM 5470: Health Communication
COMM 3800: Family Communication