Dominique Brossard

Dominique Brossard is a professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an affiliate of the UW-Madison Robert & Jean Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, the UW-Madison Energy Institute, the UW-Madison Global Health Institute, and the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. She is also a principal investigator at the Morgridge Institute for Research. She teaches courses in strategic communication theory and research, with a focus on science and risk communication, to undergraduate and graduate students, including those in the Science Communication Ph.D. program. Brossard was Chair of the Department of Life Sciences Communication for 12 years.

Brossard’s research agenda focuses on the intersection between science, media and policy with the Science Communication Incubator Lab, which she co-directs. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the International Communication Association, Brossard is an internationally known expert in public opinion dynamics related to controversial scientific issues. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of values in shaping public attitudes and using cross-cultural analysis to understand these processes. She has published more than 150 research articles in outlets such as Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Communication, Public Understanding of Science, the International Journal of Public Opinion, and Communication Research and has been an expert panelist for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) on various occasions.

Brossard has served extensively at the national and international level. Her recent service work includes serving on the NASEM Board of Life Sciences (2018-2024), the Executive Committee of the Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN – 2020-2025), and the Advisory Committee for the NASEM Division of Behavioral & Social Sciences & Education (DBASSE) before it was dissolved. She was on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences from 2019 to 2025 and Chaired the Advisory Committee for the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation for 2019 to 2024.

Brossard has a varied professional background that includes experience in the lab and the corporate world. Notably, she spent five years at Accenture in its Change Management Services Division. She was also the communication coordinator for the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPII), a position that combined public relations with marketing communication and strategic communication. Her family worked dairy farms for many generations.

Brossard earned her M.S. in plant biotechnology from the Ecole Nationale d’Agronomie de Toulouse and her M.P.S. and Ph.D. in communication from Cornell University.

You can find a list of her publications on Google Scholar.