Science Communication Initiative

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Nicole Lee
Science Communication Initiative Director

Nicole Lee is an assistant professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences where she teaches courses in communication. She received her Ph.D. in Media and Communication from Texas Tech University in 2016. Her research examines the intersection of science communication, public relations, and digital media. She is the author of several articles published in journals such as Science Communication, Environmental Communication, and Journal of Communication Management.

Bonnie Wentzel 
Science Communication Initiative Associate Director

Bonnie Wentzel is the director of the CommLabASU . This nationally recognized communication lab is an innovative learning space that provides peer mentoring to undergraduates in developing, organizing and delivering public presentations. Her passion is to expand communication education by helping students, community youth, and working professionals develop their authentic speaking voice. As a lecturer, Wentzel has been recognized for outstanding teaching as a Centennial Professor, awarded by the Associated Students of Arizona State University and received the Outstanding Teaching Award presented by the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.

Nicholas Duran

Nicholas Duran (PhD in Cognitive Psychology) is an associate professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. He is interested in the dynamic interplay between cognition, language, and action while individuals and groups engage in complex real-world tasks. He applies insights gleaned from this basic research program to build new computational tools and methods to help people become better communicators and better problem-solvers. Duran has published more than 70 journal papers, book chapters, and conference proceedings and his work has been funded by numerous grants. 

Majia Nadesan

Majia Nadesan is a professor of communication in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Nadesan’s interdisciplinary research examines the ethical implications of societal governing logics and risk-management strategies. She examined how expert understandings of autism shape how people diagnosed with the disorder are understood and treated in her book Constructing Autism (Routledge, 2005). In Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008, 2011, Routledge) she looked at how global economic logics and technological assemblages shape everyday life practices and opportunities for US citizens. In Governing Childhood she examined how these same economic logics and technological infrastructures impact children’s daily lives, creating vastly unequal childhoods (Palgrave, 2010). More recently, she has looked at how politics and scientific uncertainty complicate risk assessment in Fukushima and the Privatization of Risk (Palgrave, 2013) and Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (Lexington, 2016). 

Tess Neal

Tess M.S. Neal is a tenured associate professor in ASU's New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, where she is the principal investigator of the Clinical and Legal Judgment Lab and serves as founding director of the Future of Forensic Science Initiative. She is a founding faculty member of ASU's Law and Behavioral Science group and is a PLuS Alliance fellow. She is a scientist, a licensed psychologist (State of Arizona #4630 and State of Nebraska #844 [voluntary inactive status in NE]), and a parent of two young children. She was selected as a Fulbright Scholar to Australia for the Spring of 2022. Her research is funded by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, and she has published one edited book and more than three dozen peer-reviewed publications in such journals as Psychological Science in the Public Interest; American Psychologist; PLOS ONE; Law and Human Behavior, and Criminal Justice and Behavior.

Caitlin Otten

Caitlin Drummond Otten is an Assistant Professor of Decision Science in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Her research examines how individuals understand and use scientific evidence when forming judgments and making decisions, with particular interest in decisions regarding sustainability and the environment. One of her major lines of research asks how individuals’ ability to reason critically about scientific evidence interacts with social and motivational factors to predict their usage of and trust in scientific evidence, especially on controversial scientific topics such as climate change. The overall goals of her research program are to illuminate the cognitive, social and motivational processes involved in evaluating and using scientific evidence, and investigate ways to improve science-relevant decision-making in environment and sustainability contexts.

Greg Wise

Greg Wise is a professor of communication in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Wise's research interests focus on popular culture, technology and culture, new media, globalization, and surveillance. His publications include "Cultural Globalization: A User's Guide," published by Blackwell; a book co-edited with Hille Koskela (University of Finland) on "New Visualities" published by Ashgate; a second edition of his co-authored (with Jennifer Daryl Slack) "Culture and Technology: A Primer" with Peter Lang in 2015; and a new book about representations of surveillance in popular films, "Surveillance and Film," in 2016 with Bloomsbury Academic.