Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

COVID-19 experts available for news media interviews

Editor’s note: The following experts are available to journalists to discuss the COVID-19-related topic(s) listed below each name. The publication date of this post will be changed each time the list is updated.

 

Dolores Albarracin

Dolores Albarracin

Dolores Albarracin, professor of psychology

Topics: How people respond to public health messages asking them to change their behavior.

Best way to reach her: email dalbarra@illinois.edu

 

 

Lauren Aronson

Lauren Aronson

Lauren Aronson, clinical professor of law and director of the immigration law clinic

Topics: Anything related to immigration.

Best way to reach her: email laronson@illinois.edu

 

 

Catherine Best, research professor of bioengineering

Topics: COVID-19 associated neurological conditions and emerging trends. For      example, individuals that report losing their sense of smell and taste and who are presumed to have had COVID-19.

Best way to reach her: text 217-819-1571 or email cabest@illinois.edu

 

Cabral Bigman

Cabral Bigman

Cabral Bigman, professor of communication

Topics: Health communication and risk perception, especially related to comparative risk.

Best way to reach her: email cbigman@illinois.edu

 

 

Chris Brooke

Chris Brooke

Chris Brooke, professor of microbiology

Topics: Virology, coronavirus spread, testing, comparisons with flu, vaccination.

Best way to reach him: email cbrooke@illinois.edu

 

 

Ian Brooks, director of the Center for Health Informatics

Topics: Disease surveillance and public health response to COVID-19. 

Best way to reach him: email ianb@illinois.edu

 

Robert Bruno

Robert Bruno

Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations

Topics: Labor unions and employment; paid sick time.

Best way to reach him: phone 312-996-2491; email bbruno@illinois.edu

 

 

Mary Kalantzis

Mary Kalantzis

Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, both professors of education policy, organization and leadership

Topics: Impact of social-distancing requirement on the future of online learning in higher education.

Best way to reach them:

Cope – email billcope@illinois.edu or call 217-721-6839

Kalantzis – email kalantzi@illinois.edu or call 217-721-0717

 

Eliza Forsythe

Eliza Forsythe

Eliza Forsythe, professor of economics and of labor and employment relations

Topics: The effects of COVID-19 on the labor market.

Best way to reach her: email eforsyth@illinois.edu

 

 

Craig Gundersen

Craig Gundersen

Craig Gundersen, professor of agricultural and consumer economics

Topics: SNAP and food security.

Best way to reach him: email cggunder@illinois.edu

 

 

Rana Hogarth

Rana Hogarth

Rana Hogarth, professor of history

Topics: History of medicine; race, science and medicine; myths of racial difference related to disease; racial misperceptions and bigotry in the wake of epidemics.

Best way to reach her: email rhogarth@illinois.edu

 

Scott Irwin, the Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing

Topics: Agricultural economics.

Best way to reach him: email sirwin@illinois.edu

 

 

Sheldon Jacobson

Sheldon Jacobson

Sheldon Jacobson, professor of computer science

Topics: Numbers, forecasts, risk analysis, airport traveler screenings.

Best way to reach him: email shj@illinois.edu

 

 

Justine Kaplan, professor of community health, director of the Master of Public Health program

Topics: Pandemic and emergency preparedness management.

Best way to reach her: email justinek@illinois.edu; phone, 217-244-6257

 

Richard Kaplan

Richard Kaplan

Richard Kaplan, professor of law

Topics: Laws and policies affecting older Americans, Medicare, Social Security.

Best way to reach him: email rkaplan@illinois.edu

 

 

Karen Kramer

Karen Kramer

Karen Kramer, professor of human and community development

Topics:  How a spouse’s earnings can affect traditional gender roles and mental health – for example, how unemployment prompted many men to become stay-at-home parents while their spouses became the sole breadwinners; also parental leave associated with the stimulus package.

Best way to reach her: email kramr@illinois.edu

 

Robert Lawless

Robert Lawless

Robert Lawless, professor of law

Topics: Consumer bankruptcy, consumer finance and business law.

Best way to reach him: email rlawless@illinois.edu

 

 

Michael LeRoy

Michael LeRoy

Michael LeRoy, professor of labor and employment relations

Topics: Subjects related to employment law.

Best way to reach him: email mhl@illinois.edu

 



Dr. Jim Lowe

Dr. Jim Lowe

Dr. Jim Lowe, professor of veterinary clinical medicine

Topics: How pathogens transmit in animal populations and how to control them. 

Best way to reach him: email jlowe@illinois.edu or call 309-336-1006

 

 

Mike Miller, professor of food microbiology

Topics: Food safety.

Best way to reach him: email mille216@illinois.edu

 

 

 

Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee

Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee

Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee, professor of business administration

Topics: Supply chain issues, technology adoption in health care.

Best way to reach him: email ukm@illinois.edu

 

 

Melissa Ocepek, professor of information sciences

Topics: The intersection of food, information and culture, including work that examines how shoppers navigate the information environment of the grocery store and why an online grocery shopping platform failed.

Best way to reach her: email mgocepek@illinois.edu

 

Rob Olshansky

Rob Olshansky

Rob Olshansky, professor emeritus of urban and regional planning

Topics: Disaster recovery; discussions around density, transit and public spaces in cities.

Best way to reach him: email robo@illinois.edu

 

 

Eva Pomerantz

Eva Pomerantz

Eva Pomerantz, professor of psychology

Topics: Factors that promote children’s motivation and achievement at school; her own efforts to keep her son academically engaged while at home.

Best way to reach her: email pomerntz@illinois.edu

 

Tara Powell

Tara Powell

Tara Powell, professor of social work

Topics: Improving stress-management and coping skills (including among social service and health care workers) after natural disasters; talking to children about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Best way to reach her: phone 504-452-4505, email tlpowell@illinois.edu
 

Leslie Reagan

Leslie Reagan

Leslie Reagan, professor of history

Topics: History of U.S. medicine and public health, especially 20th century; disease, epidemics and gender.

Best way to reach her: email lreagan@illinois.edu

 

Dr. Will Sander, professor of preventive medicine, Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine

Topics: Public health/preventive health; COVID-19 and possible transmission between people and their pets.

Best way to reach him: phone 240-476-0406, email wsander@illinois.edu

 

Eunice Santos

Eunice Santos

Eunice Santos, dean of the School of Information Sciences and professor of information sciences

Topics: Computational social science and methods to understand the behavior of social networks and communities with insights related to community resilience, disaster response, and change of belief and opinion. Studied the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the social phenomena and events that influenced whether people in Mexico decided to cross the border into the U.S.

Best way to reach her: eesantos@illinois.edu

 

Jodi Schneider, professor of information sciences

Topics: Information quality of scientific papers, particularly medical papers, including: evidence synthesis; crowdsourcing COVID-19 information on Wikidata (she helped start the Wikidata COVID-19 project, an international volunteer effort); the role of scholarly communication and particularly licensing to support text and data mining; and evidence hierarchies (one way the quality of medical research is judged).

Best way to reach her: email jodi@illinois.edu

 

Sharde Smith, professor of human development and family studies

Topics: Expert on racial discrimination and the effects of social stress on mental health and behavior.

Best way to reach her: email snsmith@illinois.edu

Kelly Tu

Kelly Tu

Kelly Tu, professor of human and community development

Topics: How stress affects children’s adjustment.

Best way to reach her: email ktfrantz@illinois.edu

 

Brenda Wilson, professor of microbiology

Topics: zoonosis (infections that cross between animals and people), global biosecurity, emergency response/preparedness.

Best way to reach her: email wilson7@illinois.edu

 

Melissa Wong

Melissa Wong

Melissa Wong, instructor in information sciences

Topics: Best practices for online teaching.

Best way to reach her: email mawong@illinois.edu

 

 

Gillen DArcy Wood

Gillen D’Arcy Wood

Gillen D’Arcy Wood, English professor and associate director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment and the director of its Environmental Writing Program

Topics: Historical perspective on pandemics, including the cholera pandemics of the 19th century and a historical novel about a yellow fever epidemic in New York City in the 1820s.

Best way to reach him: email gdwood@illinois.edu

 

Don Wuebbles

Don Wuebbles

Don Wuebbles, professor of atmospheric sciences

Topics: Parallels between climate change policy and COVID-19 response.

Best way to reach him: phone 217-840-0100, email wuebbles@illinois.edu

 

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