Editor’s note: The following experts are available to journalists to discuss the COVID-19-related topic(s) listed below each name. The publication date of this post will be changed each time the list is updated.
Dolores Albarracin, professor of psychology
Topics: How people respond to public health messages asking them to change their behavior.
Best way to reach her: email dalbarra@illinois.edu
Lauren Aronson, clinical professor of law and director of the immigration law clinic
Topics: Anything related to immigration.
Best way to reach her: email laronson@illinois.edu
Catherine Best, research professor of bioengineering
Topics: COVID-19 associated neurological conditions and emerging trends. For example, individuals that report losing their sense of smell and taste and who are presumed to have had COVID-19.
Best way to reach her: text 217-819-1571 or email cabest@illinois.edu
Cabral Bigman, professor of communication
Topics: Health communication and risk perception, especially related to comparative risk.
Best way to reach her: email cbigman@illinois.edu
Chris Brooke, professor of microbiology
Topics: Virology, coronavirus spread, testing, comparisons with flu, vaccination.
Best way to reach him: email cbrooke@illinois.edu
Ian Brooks, director of the Center for Health Informatics
Topics: Disease surveillance and public health response to COVID-19.
Best way to reach him: email ianb@illinois.edu
Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations
Topics: Labor unions and employment; paid sick time.
Best way to reach him: phone 312-996-2491; email bbruno@illinois.edu
Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, both professors of education policy, organization and leadership
Topics: Impact of social-distancing requirement on the future of online learning in higher education.
Best way to reach them:
Cope – email billcope@illinois.edu or call 217-721-6839
Kalantzis – email kalantzi@illinois.edu or call 217-721-0717
Eliza Forsythe, professor of economics and of labor and employment relations
Topics: The effects of COVID-19 on the labor market.
Best way to reach her: email eforsyth@illinois.edu
Craig Gundersen, professor of agricultural and consumer economics
Topics: SNAP and food security.
Best way to reach him: email cggunder@illinois.edu
Rana Hogarth, professor of history
Topics: History of medicine; race, science and medicine; myths of racial difference related to disease; racial misperceptions and bigotry in the wake of epidemics.
Best way to reach her: email rhogarth@illinois.edu
Scott Irwin, the Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing
Topics: Agricultural economics.
Best way to reach him: email sirwin@illinois.edu
Sheldon Jacobson, professor of computer science
Topics: Numbers, forecasts, risk analysis, airport traveler screenings.
Best way to reach him: email shj@illinois.edu
Justine Kaplan, professor of community health, director of the Master of Public Health program
Topics: Pandemic and emergency preparedness management.
Best way to reach her: email justinek@illinois.edu; phone, 217-244-6257
Richard Kaplan, professor of law
Topics: Laws and policies affecting older Americans, Medicare, Social Security.
Best way to reach him: email rkaplan@illinois.edu
Karen Kramer, professor of human and community development
Topics: How a spouse’s earnings can affect traditional gender roles and mental health – for example, how unemployment prompted many men to become stay-at-home parents while their spouses became the sole breadwinners; also parental leave associated with the stimulus package.
Best way to reach her: email kramr@illinois.edu
Robert Lawless, professor of law
Topics: Consumer bankruptcy, consumer finance and business law.
Best way to reach him: email rlawless@illinois.edu
Michael LeRoy, professor of labor and employment relations
Topics: Subjects related to employment law.
Best way to reach him: email mhl@illinois.edu
Dr. Jim Lowe, professor of veterinary clinical medicine
Topics: How pathogens transmit in animal populations and how to control them.
Best way to reach him: email jlowe@illinois.edu or call 309-336-1006
Mike Miller, professor of food microbiology
Topics: Food safety.
Best way to reach him: email mille216@illinois.edu
Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee, professor of business administration
Topics: Supply chain issues, technology adoption in health care.
Best way to reach him: email ukm@illinois.edu
Melissa Ocepek, professor of information sciences
Topics: The intersection of food, information and culture, including work that examines how shoppers navigate the information environment of the grocery store and why an online grocery shopping platform failed.
Best way to reach her: email mgocepek@illinois.edu
Rob Olshansky, professor emeritus of urban and regional planning
Topics: Disaster recovery; discussions around density, transit and public spaces in cities.
Best way to reach him: email robo@illinois.edu
Eva Pomerantz, professor of psychology
Topics: Factors that promote children’s motivation and achievement at school; her own efforts to keep her son academically engaged while at home.
Best way to reach her: email pomerntz@illinois.edu
Tara Powell, professor of social work
Topics: Improving stress-management and coping skills (including among social service and health care workers) after natural disasters; talking to children about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Best way to reach her: phone 504-452-4505, email tlpowell@illinois.edu
Leslie Reagan, professor of history
Topics: History of U.S. medicine and public health, especially 20th century; disease, epidemics and gender.
Best way to reach her: email lreagan@illinois.edu
Dr. Will Sander, professor of preventive medicine, Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine
Topics: Public health/preventive health; COVID-19 and possible transmission between people and their pets.
Best way to reach him: phone 240-476-0406, email wsander@illinois.edu
Eunice Santos, dean of the School of Information Sciences and professor of information sciences
Topics: Computational social science and methods to understand the behavior of social networks and communities with insights related to community resilience, disaster response, and change of belief and opinion. Studied the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the social phenomena and events that influenced whether people in Mexico decided to cross the border into the U.S.
Best way to reach her: eesantos@illinois.edu
Jodi Schneider, professor of information sciences
Topics: Information quality of scientific papers, particularly medical papers, including: evidence synthesis; crowdsourcing COVID-19 information on Wikidata (she helped start the Wikidata COVID-19 project, an international volunteer effort); the role of scholarly communication and particularly licensing to support text and data mining; and evidence hierarchies (one way the quality of medical research is judged).
Best way to reach her: email jodi@illinois.edu
Sharde Smith, professor of human development and family studies
Topics: Expert on racial discrimination and the effects of social stress on mental health and behavior.
Best way to reach her: email snsmith@illinois.edu
Kelly Tu, professor of human and community development
Topics: How stress affects children's adjustment.
Best way to reach her: email ktfrantz@illinois.edu
Brenda Wilson, professor of microbiology
Topics: zoonosis (infections that cross between animals and people), global biosecurity, emergency response/preparedness.
Best way to reach her: email wilson7@illinois.edu
Melissa Wong, instructor in information sciences
Topics: Best practices for online teaching.
Best way to reach her: email mawong@illinois.edu
Gillen D’Arcy Wood, English professor and associate director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment and the director of its Environmental Writing Program
Topics: Historical perspective on pandemics, including the cholera pandemics of the 19th century and a historical novel about a yellow fever epidemic in New York City in the 1820s.
Best way to reach him: email gdwood@illinois.edu
Don Wuebbles, professor of atmospheric sciences
Topics: Parallels between climate change policy and COVID-19 response.
Best way to reach him: phone 217-840-0100, email wuebbles@illinois.edu