Director, CPAS, ANU

Joan is Director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science at the ANU. Given the broad nature of CPAS’s research and teaching interests in science communication, public engagement, policy, knowledge brokering, risk, and ethics, she strives to make the Centre a home for inter- and transdisciplinary research and collaboration.

Her own research and teaching centres on theories of the public in science communication, language and rhetoric in science (both in public and in technical contexts), and the challenge of ethics in science communication. She is most interested in sociological accounts of knowledge production and edited the journal Social Epistemology for 9 years.

She is a past president of Australian Science Communicators, a founding member of the American Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology, and is Chair of the National Committee for History and Philosophy of Science at the Australian Academy of Science. Purdue University (USA) awarded her a science laureateship for services to public engagement with science.

Joan has called Australia home since 2005, and previously worked at a number of world-leading universities including Imperial College London, the University of Queensland, and the University of Pittsburgh.

https://cpas.anu.edu.au/people/academics/professor-joan-leach

Sessions:

A history of science communication: the book

International science communication: a lively and animated discussion on how she emerged in 39 countries