Lindsey Harvell-Bowman, PhD

Lindsey A. Harvell-Bowman received her Ph.D. in Social Influence and Political Communication from the University of Oklahoma in 2012 (M.A., Wichita State University, 2007; B.G.S., University of Kansas, 2004). She focused on utilizing mortality salience as a persuasion tool in political campaign message design. While in graduate school, she worked on several grant-funded research teams specializing in deception research as well as grant-funded research with the Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center. Additionally, she has been a political consultant for several political campaigns in Kansas and Utah localities. Currently, Dr. Harvell-Bowman is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies and is the Vice Chair of the Institutional Review Board. She also leads the Terror Management Lab, investigating issues surrounding Terror Management Theory. Her research involving suicidality among clinical populations is currently funded by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. 


Dr. Harvell-Bowman's research currently centers around suicidality and its impact on mortality salience and death anxiety as well as mortality salience in political communication. Her research can be found in the aviation community investigating flight anxiety effects among the flying public. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her research is published in the Journal of Health Communication, Communication Methods & Measurement, Political Communication, and the Journal of Communication and Religion to name a few. Additionally, she has a co-edited anbook with Routledge in 2016 titled, Denying Death: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Terror Management Theory, and is the sole author of a book (2021) with Lexington publication, titled, We're Going Down! Curbing Flight Anxiety in an Anxious World. 


Dr. Harvell-Bowman is originally from Overland Park, Kansas, and currently resides in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley with her husband, golden retriever, and with Charlie. When she is not researching, she teaches POUND fitness classes at her local gym and reads NTSB plane crash investigation reports for fun. Her spirit animal is the emu.