Mallory Peak, PhD

Driving behavior change across large audiences

Communication to create positive social change only works when you can make the issue meaningful to people, Mallory says: “You have to show how it affects their lives in real and everyday ways.”

That means, first, taking the time as a communicator to understand your audience’s lives — studying existing research or doing your own, asking good questions of people in the affected group, being open to surprises.

Mallory says:

Engaging partners in public health campaigns

It takes many voices, speaking up together, to effect meaningful change that lasts. To bring them together: find commonalities among various partners; inspire them to get involved — show them what can be accomplished with their help; and give them the tools to connect with one another and with audiences.

“As communicators, it’s our role to facilitate those connections across agencies and organizations that are working on the same public health issues,” Mallory says. “We give them a unified platform to speak to those issues.”

Living overseas

Mallory lived in Australia and Bosnia while completing her master’s and doctoral degrees. Living overseas informs and diversifies your thinking, she says — she puts her own broad perspective to work every day.

“It helps you approach your work with new ideas from a completely different context,” Mallory says. “It also gives you the skills to jump into unfamiliar situations and to swim really well.”