Brian G. Southwell

Brian Southwell, PhD, is an expert in communication and human behavior and a senior research scientist in the Center for Communication Science at RTI. His large-scale evaluation work has spanned behaviors and audiences, including cancer prevention and screening promotion efforts, national campaigns to discourage drug and tobacco use, efforts to bolster television news coverage of science, and various state-level campaigns. He also has studied public understanding of energy and related topics.

Southwell's extensive background in communication and human behavior has allowed him to take on a leading role in our Zika virus initiatives. In an effort to examine public attitudes and perceptions concerning the virus, he is leading a study in Guatemala to understand how the public views the Zika virus and explore how to prevent transmission.

Southwell is also an adjunct professor with Duke University, where he is affiliated with the interdisciplinary Duke University Energy Initiative. In addition, he has served since 2011 as research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication and is an adjunct associate professor with UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health.

He served almost a decade at the University of Minnesota prior to these appointments, most recently as a tenured associate professor and director of graduate studies in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and has worked for a variety of nonprofit and government organizations.

He also now hosts a radio show on WNCU-FM “The Measure of Everyday Life: Stories from Social Science.” The show airs on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. and focuses on people, perceptions and human behavior.

Southwell's award-winning research and theoretical contributions appear in more than 90 journal articles and chapters. In 2013, he published the book Social Networks and Popular Understanding of Science and Health. He has served as senior editor for Health Communication and as a member of seven other editorial boards, including Communication Research and Public Opinion Quarterly. He also published the book Innovations in Home Energy Use: A Sourcebook for Behavior Change in 2016, and Misinformation and Mass Audiences, which he has coedited, is forthcoming from University of Texas Press in January 2018.