International partners and Mercato Fellows

Dr. Fabiana Zollo

Fabiana Zollo (Ca’ Foscari University, Italy):

Dr. Fabiana Zollo serves as the national expert for Italy with substantial knowledge about government structures, the media system, as well as the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. Dr. Zollo supports the project by contacting and accessing governments and health institutions, and by identifying the most relevant institutional communication channels. Dr. Zollo also conducts interviews with government officials and citizens. In addition, Dr. Zollo supports the appropriate selection of media outlets and reviews the codebook for suitability to the Italian context and assesses the cross-cultural validity of research instruments such as questionnaires and interview guidelines. As a renowned expert for data science and computational methods, Dr. Zollo contributes in terms of algorithm development, data cleansing, and automated analysis.

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Danielle Timmermans (Amsterdam UMC, Netherlands):

Prof. Dr. Danielle Timmermansis an internationally renowned expert for the study of risk perceptions in health contexts. With that expertise and her network in the Netherlands and the European health sector, she plays a crucial role in reaching out to professional health communicators during the project. With her background in psychology, she also participates in developing an interdisciplinary framework for the study of Covid-19-related risk communication and risk perception as applied throughout the project. In particular, she contributes to developing valid and reliable measures and questionnaires and help preparing and conducting interviews with officials and citizens. As an experienced health communication consultant, she will support substantially the development of guidelines for effective risk communication in the context of pandemics.

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Prof. Dr. Ángel Janvier Castaños Martínez

Ángel Castaños Martínez (University CEU Cardenal Herrera, Spain):

Prof. Dr. Ángel Janvier Castaños Martínez serves as one of the national expert for Spain with substantial knowledge about government structures, the media system, as well as the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. Martínesz supports the project by contacting and accessing governments and health institutions, and by identifying the most relevant institutional communication channels. In addition, he supports the appropriate selection of media outlets and reviews the codebook for suitability to the Spanish context and assesses the cross-cultural validity of research instruments such as questionnaires and interview guidelines.

Maite Mercado

María Teresa Mercado Saez (University CEU Cardenal Herrera, Spain):

Prof. Dr. María Teresa Mercado Saez serves as one of the national expert for Spain with substantial knowledge about government structures, the media system, as well as the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. She supports the project by contacting and accessing governments and health institutions, and by identifying the most relevant institutional communication channels. In addition, Mercado supports the appropriate selection of media outlets and reviews the codebook for suitability to the Spanish context and assesses the cross-cultural validity of research instruments such as questionnaires and interview guidelines.

Prof. Bengt Johansson

Bengt Johansson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden):

Prof. Dr. Bengt Johansson serves as the national expert with substantial knowledge about Sweden’s government structures, the media system, as well as the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. He supports contacting and accessing the Swedish government and health institutions, helps with the identification of the most relevant institutional communication channels and in conducting interviews with officials and citizens. In addition, he supports the media analysis with the appropriate selection of media outlets, reviews the codebook for suitability for the Swedish context, and retrieves articles from databases at Gothenburg University. Prof. Johansson assesses the cross-cultural validity of research instruments such as questionnaires, interview guidelines. As an expert for risk communication on pandemics as well as political crisis communication, Prof. Johansson plays a crucial role in the development of theoretical frameworks and measures for empirical analysis throughout the project.

Dr. Audra Diers-Lawson

Audra Diers-Lawson (Kristiania University College, Norway; previously Leeds Beckett University, UK):

Dr. Audra Diers-Lawson serves as the national expert for the UK with substantial knowledge about the UK’s government structures, the media system, as well as the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. She supports contacting and accessing government and health institutions in UK, helps identifying most relevant institutional communication channels and conducting interviews with officials and citizens. Dr. Diers-Lawson supports the media analysis with the appropriate selection of media outlets, reviews the codebook for suitability for the UK context, and retrieves articles from the databases at Kristiania University College. Diers-Lawson also assesses the cross-cultural validity of research instruments such questionnaires, interview guidelines. As a renowned expert for content analysis in crisis communication research, she contributes substantially to the development of a valid and reliable codebook that can be applied cross-culturally to the analysis of Covid-19 news coverage.

Prof. Dr. Deanna Sellnow

Deanna Sellnow (University of Central Florida, USA):

Prof. Dr. Deanna Sellnow serves as the national expert for the US with substantial knowledge about US government structures, the media system, as well as the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US. She supports contacting and accessing government institutions in the country, helps with the identification of the most relevant institutional communication channels and in conducting interviews with officials and citizens. Deanna Sellnow also supports the project team’s efforts to reach out to international organizations such the WHO with which she has worked in the past. She also assesses the cross-cultural validity of research instruments in WP 3. As an expert for risk communication on pandemics, Prof. Dr. Sellnow plays a crucial role in the development of theoretical frameworks and measures for empirical analysis throughout the project.

Prof. Dr. Timothy Sellnow

Timothy Sellnow (University of Central Florida, USA):

Prof. Dr. Timothy Sellnow serves as one the national experts for the USA with substantial knowledge about the US health system, the media system, as well as the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic. He helps in accessing health institutions in the country, identifying institutional communication channels and conducting interviews with officials and citizens. Prof. Dr. Sellnow supports the team to reach out to international organizations such WHO with which he has worked in the past. Sellnow participates in the media analysis with the appropriate selection of media outlets and reviewing the codebook for suitability for the US context. As a renowned expert for risk and crisis communication on pandemics, he plays a crucial role in the development of theoretical frameworks and measures for empirical analysis throughout the project. As co-developer of the IDEA model for effective instructional risk communication, he advices the analysis of institutional risk communication. Based on extensive experience in consulting professional communicators in the health and government sector, Prof. Dr. Sellnow contributes to WP4 and the development of best practice guidelines.