Nehama Lewis, Ph.D.

Nehama Lewis’ research aims to understand the relationships between engagement with health information on knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors. Her research findings offer insight for the design of effective campaign messages. 

Nehama Lewis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Haifa, where she has been a faculty member since 2012. From March 2023 through October 2024, she served as the Vice Dean (Research) of the Herta and Paul Amir Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Haifa. She is the elected Vice-Chair of the Health Communication division of the International Communication Association (since 2023), and has served as an elected member of the board of the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) from 2018-2020. Lewis is an editorial board member for Health Communication, Science Communication, and the European Journal of Health Communication.

Lewis received her B.A. (2002) and M.A. (2006) from the Hebrew University, and a Ph.D. (2010) from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, under the supervision of Prof. Robert Hornik. Prof. Lewis was a visiting assistant professor at Florida International University’s Community Based Intervention Research Group (C-BIRG - https://cbri.fiu.edu/) from 2010-2012, and a visiting scholar at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) in fall, 2019, and at San Diego State University's School of Communication (Spring 2025).

Her research aims to identify the factors that influence human behaviors, and to promote positive behavior change through the design of strategic media campaigns that target and influence these factors. She is primarily interested in promoting behaviors that enhance public health, such as cancer prevention, as well as preventing and reducing risk behaviors such as drug-impaired driving. Lewis’ research has been supported by an EU Marie Curie Reintegration grant, Horizon-2020 (EQUALS-EU project to promote gender equity), Israel’s Insurance Companies’ Research Fund, and by the University of Haifa’s Center for Cyber Law and Policy. 

Her recent research focuses on media coverage of substance use and the design of messages that target risky behaviors including cannabis-impaired driving.