Leticia (Leti) Couto is an assistant professor at the public relations and advertising department. She went to the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas for her B.S. in Journalism focusing on strategic communication, and she completed her M.A. and Ph.D. education in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University.
Leti has served as a reviewer for multiple academic conferences in her discipline and is a member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Communicating Science, Health, Environment, and Risk (ComSHER) division's leadership team for the academic year of 2024-2025 as a media team member. In the academic year of 2023-2024, she served on ComSHER's graduate student committee. She is an active member of both AEJMC and the International Communication Association.
Leti's research focuses on health communication, particularly where substance use, sexual behavior, and mental health are concerned. She has published her work in outlets such as the Journal of Health Communication, Health Communication, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Journal of Sex Research, among others.
Leti was born and raised in Recife, Brazil, a city of approximately 4.3M habitants in its metro. Although Brazilian, she prefers American football to soccer, a fact that highly amuses her husband. Leti and her husband are the owners of a delightfully cute Boston Terrier called Graham.