Brian Southwell

Biography

Brian Southwell, Ph.D., is senior director of the Science in the Public Sphere Program at RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute based in North Carolina. He also is adjunct professor of Internal Medicine with Duke University and a graduate faculty member and Adjunct Associate Professor in Health Behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Southwell has published widely on topics such as public understanding of science, human memory, and the social diffusion of information. He co-founded the Duke Program on Medical Misinformation, a clinician training initiative to improve patient-provider conversations about misinformation, and also has published a book and various articles about misinformation as a threat to society. He has organized a variety of summits and convenings, such as the Misinformation Solutions Forum sponsored by the Rita Allen Foundation in conjunction with the Aspen Institute. In addition, Southwell created and hosts The Measure of Everyday Life, a public radio show that translates research for general audiences, on WNCU, a station based at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.