About Us

Sarah Kercsmar, PhD

Email: scave2@email.uky.edu

Telephone: (859) 323-0603

Sarah Kercsmar has a joint faculty appointment in the College of Nursing and the College of Communications and Information Studies. She is Co-Director of the Kentucky Center for Smoke-Free Policy and also is Co-Investigator for the radon research projects. 

She most recently worked in Northern Kentucky on a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded project to advance secondhand smoke and radon education and advocacy in the region. She previously served as the Technical Assistance Coordinator and Community Advisor on the NHLBI-funded study to test the effects of a community intervention on smoke-free policy outcomes in rural communities (R01 HL086450-01).

Kercsmar received her undergraduate and master's degrees in communication studies from Marshall University. She completed her doctorate in communication at the University of Kentucky in 2007.

Kercsmar also brings professional experience in tobacco control to her work with the Tobacco Policy Research Program. She served as the grassroots organizer on a successful tobacco tax campaign in West Virginia prior to returning to school to pursue her doctorate. She enjoys applied research that combines best practices from the field with the latest science to help uncover the best ways to address community-level issues.