Dr. Hoffman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. She completed her Master’s in Public Health in 2019 and received her PhD from Pitt Public Health in May 2022. Past research projects include examining the influence on viewers of the aging storyline on This Is Us, focus groups with adolescents around vaping-lung disease storylines on popular medical dramas, and analyzing anti-vaccine rhetoric on Facebook and Twitter.

She currently serves as Co-Investigator on an NIH-funded study examining nicotine and tobacco misinformation on youth-oriented social media platforms, and the Principal Investigator on a project using data from Reddit to examine discourse around health topics featured in The Pitt. Dr. Hoffman also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on community health and entertainment media and health and is part of several community-academic partnerships aimed at mentoring and improving STEM education for young people in Pittsburgh.