People Group Archives: Presenters

Dewald is a well-published researcher in disaster studies, founder and Editor in Chief of Jamba: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, and played a significant role in the establishment of the Southern Africa Society for Disaster Reduction.    

Tanya worked as a communication professional and academic in South Africa and the UK. Her research interests are focused on strategic communication and disaster risk reduction.    

John Sweeney is a Distinguished Professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. He is the head of the advertising-public relations area-of-study and Director of the Sports Communication Certificate program. He came to UNC-CH from Chicago advertising where he was a creative director at agency FCB. Breakout Session 1: March 8, 10:45 AM-Noon The […]

Craig Maier teaches in the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where he takes critical and philosophical approaches to corporate communication in nonprofits and religious institutions.  

Amanda G. McKendree teaches in the Department of Management & Organization at the University of Notre Dame, where she examines crisis communication, conflict communication, and the influence of rhetoric on organizational identity.    

Ashik Shafi is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Media at Bemidji State University, Minnesota. His research areas include political public relations, health communication, and use of new communication technologies in journalism. Breakout Session 1: March 8, 10:45 AM-Noon Effect of construal level and information-richness in messages about depression among college students.

Rifka Sibarani is a Ph.D. candidate at the College of Education, Charles Darwin University.  Her Ph.D. research project focuses on exploring the social effects of the ubiquitous use of social media on community disaster preparedness. This includes researching the impacts of social media on emergency communication.

Dr. Coman is an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University. She explores how different actors engage and interact in risk and crisis communication situations via different platforms, within different contexts, at different levels.  

Aspriadis Neofytos, Ph.D., Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Peloponnese. He holds a Ph.D. and a M.Sc from the Department of International and European Studies of the University of Piraeus. He conducted his Ph.D. with a scholarship by the State Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY).  His research interests are […]

Dr. Steven Venette is a professor in the School of Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi. His research focuses on risk, crisis and organizational communication. Breakout Session 4: March 8, 4:15-5:30 PM Debating our crisis realities: Time for a dialogic approach to our ontological assumptions.