I’m extremely proud of all my students. My undergraduate students and advisees have gone on to fascinating positions, in science journalism, in science museums, in other kinds of public engagement in science, in teaching, in research, in law and business and medicine and public health, in positions that defy easy description. There’s too many to keep track of.
I’ve had fewer graduate students. Here’s what some of them have done:
PhD Students
Steven Allison-Bunnell (Science & Technology Studies), Ph.D. (1995); Dissertation: “Transplanting a Rain Forest: Natural History Research and Public Exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution, 1960‑1975” (first position: 1995, founding Science & Nature Editor, Discovery Channel Online; currently, principal, NatureBoyMedia)
John Besley (Communication), Ph.D. (2006); Dissertation: “Exploring Media Coverage about Local Civic Engagement Using the Relational Approach to Procedural Justice” (first position, 2006: Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of South Carolina; current: Brandt Chair and Professor, Michigan State University)
Dominique Brossard (Communication), Ph.D. (2002); Dissertation: “Media effects, public perceptions of science, and authoritarian attitudes towards agricultural biotechnology decision-making” (first position: 2002, Research Associate, Department of Communication, Cornell University; current position: Professor, Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison; since 2013, chair of department)
Mark Chong (Communication), Ph.D. (2005); Dissertation: “Risk Perception and Communication about Agricultural Biotechnology in Developing Countries: The Case of Bt Eggplant in India”(first position: 2005, Practice Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University; current position: Professor)
Philip Davis (Communication), Ph.D. (2010); Dissertation: “Access, Readership, Citations: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Scientific Journal Publishing” (first position: August 2010, Research Associate, Department of Communication, Cornell University; current position: independent scholar and publishing consultant, Ithaca, NY)
Megan Halpern (Communication), Ph.D. (2014); Dissertation: “Beyond Engagement: Meaningful Relationships Among Experts and Audiences in the Performing Arts and Sciences” (first position: 2014, postdoctoral fellow, Center for Nanotechnology and Society, Arizona State University; current position: Associate Professor of History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, Michigan State University)
P. Solomon Hart (Communication), Ph.D. (2010); Dissertation: “Prosocial Messages and Perceptual Screens: Framing Global Climate Change” (first position: 2010, assistant professor, Department of Communication, American University; current position: associate professor, Department of Communication & Media, University of Michigan)
Hepeng Jia (Communication), Ph.D. (2019); Dissertation: “When Science Controversies Encounter Political Opportunities—Comparing GMO, Hydropower and Nuclear Power Contentions in Contemporary China” (first and current position: 2019, Professor of Science Communication, Soochow University)
John Lunsford (Communication), Ph.D. (2021); Dissertation: “Building a Legacy of Inequality into the Future of For-Hire Transit from the Hackney Horse to the Autonomous Taxi” (first position, 2021: user-experience researcher, Uber)
Lisa Onaga (Science & Technology Studies), Ph.D. (2011); Dissertation: “Silkworms, Science, and Nation: A Sericultural History of Genetics in Modern Japan” (first position: 2011, postdoctoral associate, UCLA; current position: senior research scholar, Max Planck Institute)
Andrew Pleasant (1962-2022) (Communication), Ph.D. (2005); Dissertation: “Public Engagement with Health Research: Development of Knowledge and Attitude Scales” (first position, 2005: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Human Ecology, Rutgers University; final position: senior advisor, Health Literacy Media)
Jessica Polk (Science & Technology Studies), Ph.D. (2019): Dissertation: “When Health Goes to Work: Transforming Workplaces into Healthy Spaces” (First position: 2019, Postdoctoral fellow, McGill University)
Sonja Schmid (Science & Technology Studies), Ph.D. (2005); Dissertation: “Envisioning a Technological State: Reactor Design Choices and Political Legitimation in the Soviet Union and Russia” (first position: 2005, postdoctoral fellow, Center for International and Strategic Studies, Stanford University; current position: associate professor of Science and Technology Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)
Meghnaa Tallapragada (Communication), Ph.D. (2016); Dissertation: “Activists, Learning and Relating to the Controversial Technology of Hydraulic Fracturing” (first position: 2016, postdoctoral fellow, Annenberg Public Policy Center, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania; current position: Assistant Professor, Temple University)
Kathryn De Ridder-Vignone (Science & Technology Studies), Ph.D. (2013); “Democratizing Nanotechnology: The Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network and the Meaning of Civic Education” (first position: 2012, postdoctoral fellow, Center for Nanotechnology & Society, Arizona State University; current position: South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics, chair of the faculty)
Tyson Vaughan (Science & Technology Studies), Ph.D. (2014); Dissertation: “Reconstructing Communities: Participatory Recovery Planning in Post Disaster Japan” (first position: 2014, postdoctoral fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; current position: staff sociologist, US Army Corps of Engineers, Institute for Water Resources).