Risk Communication Laboratory

Key Lab Personnel

Director

Thomas F. Gordon, PhD, is a Professor of Public Health in the Department of Public Health at Temple University, where he established the Ph.D. concentration in Health Communication. Dr. Gordon specializes in psycho-physiological assessment and multivariate statistical modeling, with an emphasis on perceptual mapping and message design techniques. His research interests include risk communication, health campaign design, and health psychology. He teaches courses in health communication, research methodology, and health psychology at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and is a Graduate Faculty member in Temple's Neuroscience Program. Dr. Gordon recently served as Senior Research Consultant to the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch, and is active on the Health Communication Working Group of the federal Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, which coordinates activities of the Healthy People 2010 initiative. Dr. Gordon currently serves on the Community Influences on Health Behavior Study Section at NCI/NIH.

Co-Directors

Sheryl Burt Ruzek, PhD, MPH is Professor of Public Health and Women’s Studies and Co-Directs the Center for Women’s Health Research, Leadership and Advocacy at Temple University. Her research focuses on gender issues in risk communication, cancer communication, and the role of patient advocacy organizations in health communication. She has served as a consultant to the WHO, FDA and numerous state and regional public health organizations and is Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the ECRI Institute, an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Evidence Based Practice Center and WHO Collaborating Center. She is also a member of the Health Communication Working Group of the DHHS Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Sarah Bauerle Bass, PhD, MPH is Associate Professor of Public Health and Director of Undergraduate public health programs at Temple University. Her research focuses on health and risk communication and how public health messages are crafted for all audiences. She also has researched the use of new technologies and their impact on patient/public self-efficacy and behavior intention. She has widely published in the area of health communication and recently authored a guide on Health Literacy. Dr. Bass is a member of many professional organizations including the American Public Health Association, the Society for Public Health Education, and the American Medical Informatics Association. She also sits on the Health Communication Working Group of Healthy People 2010 for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Undergraduate Public Health Education committee for the Association of Schools for Public Health.

Research Assistants

Michael Rovito, MS
Caitlin Wolack, BA
Johnson Britto