Core Faculty

Sol Hart: Sol Hart is a Professor in Communication and Media and the Program in the Environment, and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Social Research. He specializes in risk communication related to environmental, science, and risk issues. Professor Hart’s research investigates the psychological processes underlying effective risk communication. This research area includes understanding the role of the media in motivating and engaging the public around a variety of issues and how to create effective messages that can cross ideological divides and resonate with broad sections of the public.

Ariel Hasell: Ariel Hasell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media and a Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies. Her research focuses on digital media, public opinion, and public engagement with politics and science. She uses quantitative methodologies to examine how news media content influences various attitudes and behaviors related to science and the environment—including information evaluation, motivations to process and share information, and the formation of policy preferences.

Yanna Krupnikov: Yanna Krupnikov is a Professor of Communication and Media and a Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies. Her research focuses on political expression, media effects and journalist decision-making. She is most interested in people’s willingness to publicly express political opinions and how these forms of political expression shape people’s perceptions of politics.  Her recent research addresses partisanship and political polarization.

Josh Pasek: Josh Pasek is an Associate Professor of Communication and Media. His research explores how new media and psychological processes shape political attitudes, public opinion, and political behaviors. Josh also examines issues in the measurement of public opinion including techniques for reducing measurement error and improving survey design. Current research explores how political information might influence public opinion and voter decision-making, evaluates whether the use of online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter might be changing the political information environment, and assesses the differences between survey results obtained from Internet volunteers as opposed to traditional samples.

John Barry Ryan:  John Barry Ryan is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Departments of Communication and Media and Political Science; he is also a Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies.

Brian Weeks: Brian Weeks is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media and a Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies.  His primary research areas include political misinformation and misperceptions, news sharing on social media, and online political expression. Brian received his Ph.D. in Communication from Ohio State University and was a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna.

Supporting Faculty

Michael Traugott: Professor Traugott studies the mass media and their impact on American politics. This includes research on the use of the media by candidates in their campaigns and its impact on voters, as well as the ways that campaigns are covered and the impact of this coverage on candidates. He has a particular interest in the use of surveys and polls and the way news organizations employ them to cover campaigns and elections.

Nicholas Valentino: Professor Valentino is a student of political communication, political psychology, and electoral behavior. His work focuses on political campaigns, racial attitudes, emotions, and social group cues in news and political advertising. His current work examines the intersection between racial attitudes and emotion in predicting political participation and vote choice.