Dr. Heather Canary

Bio

Dr. Canary, Professor and Director of the School of Communication, earned her PhD at Arizona State University. Before coming to SDSU, Dr. Canary was on faculties of Arizona State University and the University of Utah. Her research interests include organizational, family, and health communication. Dr. Canary’s recent projects include interventions to improve surgical team communication and to improve policy communication and compliance at a research university. Her other organization-family communication studies in health contexts have included discharge and hand-off communication at a pediatric hospital, diagnosis and disclosure communication with parents of babies with Down syndrome, and conversations regarding genetic screening. Dr. Canary’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Her teaching interests include leadership and organizational communication, family communication, communication theory, and health communication. In her free time, Dr. Canary enjoys trail running and being a backyard farmer at her home in Mt. Helix.