about us

Interested in Learning More?

The OPTIC Lab (Organizing Practices through Technology, Information, and Communication) is a group of social science researchers who study and teach in the broader area of communication technology. Our primary location is at The University of Texas at Austin in the Moody College of Communication, but we partner and collaborate with people at other institutions. We focus on real-world problems and provide communities, companies, and organizations evidence-based research enabling them to implement best practices, facilitate organizing, and understand how to reach their audiences.

Our Mission

Changing communities by capitalizing on research in communication technologies.

Let’s meet some of the researchers in OPTIC Lab.

I’m Keri Stephens, a faculty member in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. I teach classes in organizational communication, technology, sales communication, meetings, and grant writing.  I’ve posted my story to give you more insight into how I became a professor/teacher/researcher.  I work with undergraduate and graduate students who end up having amazing lives and careers.  I’ll share some of these details here because I thoroughly enjoy my work.

StephensFacultyFellow2018 (FILEminimizer)

Some active members of our lab include: 

Ashley Barrett, Stephanie Dailey, Millie Harrison, Kerk Kee, Courtney Powers, Brett Robertson, Roth Smith, and Eric Waters. This site talks about the research that these teams conduct.  Please realize that almost every research project involves undergraduate and graduate students because one of our core values is mentoring others in social science research.

Changing communities by capitalizing on research in communication technologies.