Rachel ItalianoRachel Italiano

226 Hodges Hall | ritali1@lsu.edu 

Biography

Rachel Italiano is a fourth-year doctoral student at the Manship School of Mass Communication. She earned a master’s degree from Marquette University in communication professions & society in 2018. Rachel earned a Bachelor of Arts in communicative arts with an emphasis in public relations and a minor in history from Wisconsin Lutheran College. In May 2021, Rachel and her co-authors’ research, “Perceptions of Police Use of Force Among U.S. Adults and the Role of Communication Accommodation in Improving Police-Civilian Interactions,” was published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research. 

Rachel has also received top paper designations from the National Communication Association (2020), the Central States Communication Association (2016), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (2018). Rachel's work focuses on communication in law enforcement environments using a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. She also researches free speech, public opinion and local government communication. In her spare time, Rachel focuses on community activism and is working to prevent the consolidation of the local 9-1-1 dispatch center with the county dispatch center through education, communication and social media outreach.