K. "Vish" Viswanath, PhD, Professor of Health Communication at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has been named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is a distinguished lifetime honor within the scientific community bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.
"This year's class of Fellows are the embodiment of scientific excellence and service to our communities," said Sudip S. Parikh, PhD, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. "At a time when the future of the scientific enterprise in the U.S. and around the world is uncertain, their work demonstrates the value of sustained investment in science and engineering."
Viswanath currently serves as Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and in the McGraw-Patterson Center for Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is as the Faculty Director of the Health Communication Core of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Director of the Center for Translational Communication Science at Dana-Farber and Harvard Chan.
Viswanath's research focuses on how to center equity in drawing on translational communication science to promote health and well-being for all population groups and to involve community-based organizations and stakeholders through participatory research in promoting social change. His lab studies how knowledge of science is translated to influence public health policy and practice through translational communication.
Viswanath has authored more than 300 journal articles and book chapters concerning communication inequalities and health disparities, knowledge translation, public health communication campaigns, e-health and digital divide, public health preparedness, and the delivery of health communication interventions to underserved populations. Most recently, Viswanath led a panel of scientific investigators gathered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that produced a seminal report on defining misinformation in science and laying out strategies for mitigating its spread and potential harms.
Viswanath is among 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators elected as AAAS Fellows across 24 AAAS disciplinary sections. AAAS Fellows will be celebrated at the annual Fellows Forum in Washington, D.C., in June.
