Editorial Team 2013-2019

Laura Black is a Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. Her research focuses on group communication in deliberation and dialogue, including conflict management, facilitation practices, storytelling, and the relationship of deliberative groups to their community contexts. Her research has been published in journals such as Communication Theory, Small Group Research, and the Journal of Applied Communication Research as well as in several edited books on deliberation and democracy. She is one of the founding officers of the Public Dialogue and Deliberation division of the National Communication Association and is the former editor of the Journal of Public Deliberation. She received her PhD from the University of Washington.

Timothy J. Shaffer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the Assistant Director of the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at Kansas State University. He is also the Principal Research Specialist at the National Institute for Civil Discourse. His research centres on the advancement of democratic practices through deliberative politics and civic engagement in higher education and other institutional and community settings. He received his PhD from Cornell University.

Nancy Thomas directs Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, an applied research centre dedicated to advancing student political learning, discussion, equity, and participation in democracy. Her interests include voting, campus climates for political learning and engagement; discussion-based teaching and leadership, and; speech, inclusion and academic freedom. She also co-founded and directed the Democracy Imperative, an association of academics and practitioners committed to advancing dialogue on campuses. She is the author of multiple book chapters and articles and editor of the monograph, Educating for Deliberative Democracy (Jossey-Bass 2010). She served as a senior associate with Everyday Democracy and former associate editor of the Journal of Public Deliberation. She received her JD from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and her EdD from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.