Communication & Research Consultant
Where Research meets strategic influence.
PhD-level expertise bridging public health communication, defense-sector strategy, and evidence-driven narrative intelligence — built for the clients who can’t afford to get the message wrong.
10+ Years Experience
Catasha Davis, PhD
NCI
DoD
About
Research authority. Strategic clarity.
The gap between what communicators assume and what audiences actually do — that's where I work.
— Catasha Davis, PhD
UW–Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication, 2026
Sharon Dunwoody Early Career Award
I’m a freelance Communication and Research Consultant with a PhD in Mass Communication and a decade of applied experience across public health, clinical trials, national defense, nonprofit, and private sector environments.
My work spans the full arc of the research-to-action pipeline: designing rigorous studies, synthesizing evidence, and translating findings into communication strategies that perform in real-world conditions — whether that’s a federal health campaign, a defense information environment assessment, or a longitudinal policy research agenda.
I bring past performance with federal health agencies (NCI, NIA) and defense clients through Protagonist Technology and Parenthetic. With prior experience in classified and sensitive government environments — including TS/SCI and Public Trust clearance history — I understand the operational context, access requirements, and stakeholder expectations that define high-stakes government work. My academic grounding in Third-Person Effect theory and Influence of Presumed Influence informs everything I build — including my proprietary EchoPosture™ framework for strategic influence analysis.
Services
Full-spectrum consulting
capabilities.
Strategic Communications
Message architecture, narrative development, and information environment analysis for government, defense, and institutional clients. Grounded in behavioral and social influence theory.
Influence Analysis
Research Design & Execution
Mixed-methods research design, survey instruments, qualitative inquiry, focus groups, and longitudinal data architectures. Delivered to federal, academic, and nonprofit standards.
Survey Design
Health Communication
Campaign strategy, audience segmentation, and science translation for public health initiatives, clinical trials, and federal health agencies. A decade of applied expertise at NCI and NIA.
Clinical Trials
Policy & Equity Research
Longitudinal demographic and socioeconomic data analysis, reparative action research, archival research management, and evidence synthesis for legislative and government audiences.
Racial Equity
Training & Capacity Building
Research team management, archival research guidance, communication training for organizational stakeholders, and bespoke curriculum development for research and communications staff.
Curriculum Design
Intelligence & OSINT Analysis
Open-source information environment assessments, adversarial narrative tracking, and strategic communications analysis for defense and emerging technology environments.
Adversarial Narratives
Proprietary Framework
Introducing EchoPosture™
EchoPosture™ is a proprietary strategic influence framework designed for defense and emerging-technology environments. It provides a systematic approach to diagnosing how messages move through information environments — and how to position communication before, during, and after influence events.
Grounded in two foundational theories of media psychology, EchoPosture™ translates academic rigor into an operational diagnostic and recommendation tool — ready for government, defense, and institutional deployment.
Theoretical foundations:
Third-Person Effect (Davison, 1983)
Influence of Presumed Influence (Gunther & Storey, 2003)
EchoPosture™ is a proprietary framework. All rights reserved.
The EchoPosture™ Cycle
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Testimonials
What clients say.
Dr. Shawnika J. Hull
Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Rutgers University — Dissertation Advisor & Research Collaborator
Sharon L. Smith
RN, DNP, CCRP, Acting Director, Office of Clinical Research, National Institute on Aging (NIH)
Research & Publications
Selected works.
Peer-reviewed research spanning health communication, media effects, and strategic influence. Full publication list available upon request.
Contact
Let's work together.
Available for research consulting engagements, and strategic communications projects.