Dorothy C. Andreas
Assistant professor of communication, Seaver College
As a communications expert, Dorothy C. Andreas has made a specialization of analyzing and writing about risk in some of the riskiest professions imaginable, including uranium mining and nuclear engineering. While a graduate teaching assistant at Texas A&M University from 2008 to 2010, she simultaneously worked as a communication specialist at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where she co-authored manuscripts about emergency response research and how to communicate the risks of uranium mining.
Andreas has also written extensively on other areas of communication such as environmental policy, expert risk communication, and healthcare, including a paper about information management among Hispanic cancer patients—which won the Top Health Communication Paper award in 2005 at the Eastern Communication Association Conference.
Before completing her PhD at Texas A&M, she earned a bachelor's of science degree in education and human development from Texas A&M and a master's degree from the communications department at Texas State University in San Marcos.
We ask: In our age of social networking and political correctness, what do you believe students most need to learn about human communication?
The first thought that comes to mind is that we must always remember to treat each other with care and concern. I believe that interactions with social media or with socially different groups create an environments in which we tend to forget the elegant and ethical ways of treating people that we might otherwise remember when we see them face to face. Thus, at all times, we must remember that there is a person with a face and feelings who will receive and respond to our messages.
