Area(s) of Expertise

• Public discourses on issues with scientific/technical dimensions, especially in energy and environmental contexts
• Interactions among policy makers, regulatory agencies, technical communities, and public stakeholder communities
• Knowledge production across disciplinary, institutional, social, and cultural contexts
• Communication and interdisciplinary collboration in scientific research and technology development settings

Research Summary

My research and teaching address the overlapping areas of organizational communication, environmental communication, rhetoric of science and technology, and rhetoric of public policy, viewed through an interpretive perspective based in critical theory, phenomenology, rhetoric, and discourse studies. My research projects have examined public discourses of environment, energy, technology, and climate change; nuclear energy policy and regulation; and risk analysis and risk communication.  I dir

Publications

• The Hanford plaintiffs: voices from the fight for atomic justice , Local Environment (2022)
• Splitting (over) the atom , (2021)
• Extracting Uranium’s futures: Nuclear wastes, toxic temporalities, and uncertain decisions , The Extractive Industries and Society (2020)
• Communicating/organizing for reliability, resilience, and safety: special issue introduction , Corporate Communications An International Journal (2018)
• Communicating Nuclear Power: A Programmatic Review , Annals of the International Communication Association (2015)
• Rearticulating Nuclear Power: Energy Activism and Contested Common Sense , Environmental Communication (2014)
• Risk, Regulation, and Rhetorical Boundaries: Claims and Challenges Surrounding a Purported Nuclear Renaissance , Communication Monographs (2013)
• Environments, Risks, and the Limits of Representation: Examples from Nuclear Energy and Some Implications of Fukushima , Environmental Communication (2012)
• FORUM Communicative Action in Response to a Nuclear Crisis: Representations of Fukushima across Communication Contexts , Environmental Communication (2012)
• Special issue: Learning from the 2008-09 global financial crisis , Electronic Journal of Communication (2011)

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