People
Principal Investigators
- Perry Deess is the Director of Institutional Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has primary responsibility for data processing, survey implementation, theoretical background, and editing.
- John Gastil is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. He oversees every aspect of the project and is the principal author.
- Phil Weiser is Associate Professor in the School of Law at the University of Colorado. He has primary responsibility for analyzing the legal/historical context of this research.
Co-Authors
- Kent Anderson is a senior lecturer on the Faculty of Law at the The Australian National University. He and Mark Nolan have written about citizen participation in the Japanese justice system. See faculty website for more information.
- Laura Black is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. Her dissertation examined how storytelling shapes identity and manages conflict during public deliberation. She helped create the national dataset for this project.
- Stephanie Burkhalter is an assistant professor in political science at Humboldt State University. Her dissertation examined the structural conditions and practices that promote and inhibit deliberation in the U.S. Congress. She helped create the national dataset for this project.
- Paula Consolini is the Coordinator of Experiential Education at Williams College. She conducted what may be the first test of Tocqueville's ideas about the civic impact of jury service in her 1992 doctoral dissertation at the University of California at Berkeley.
- Hiroshi Fukurai is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California-Santa Cruz. He studies the American jury and Japan's jury innovations. See faculty website for more information.
- Alevtina Gall is an undergraduate at the University of Washington. She served as a research assistant on both the NSF project and the national dataset project, and she is studying the small but significant effect of jury orientation on jurors' readiness for service.
- Andrea Hickerson is a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Washington. Her work looks at deliberation, diversity, and diasporic media.
- Jordan Larner conducted a series of qualitative interviews for her senior honors thesis at the University of Washington in the Department of Communication. Her research involved interviewing jurors regarding the connection between jury service and other civic activities.
- Jay Leighter is an assistant professor at Creighton University, having earned his PhD in communication at the University of Washington. Jay served as the principal research assistant on the NSF-funded portion of our project in 2004.
- Mark Nolan is a senior lecturer on the Faculty of Law at the The Australian National University. He and Kent Anderson have written about citizen participation in the Japanese justice system. See faculty website for more information.
- Cindy Simmons is a lecturer in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, where she recently completed law school. She has reported on state government, the courts, and public affairs for 15 years and is currently a law student at the University of Washington. She is writing on legal and theoretical issues relating to jury service.
- Leah Sprain is a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Washington. Her dissertation studies meetings of a Nicaraguan Fair Trade coffee cooperative. She is writing on the qualitative experiences of jurors.
- Mike Xenos is an assistant professor in communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research looks at deliberation, voting, and new media. He focuses on how different electoral information environments shape how citizens arrive at political opinions and voting decisions.
NSF Expert Panel
- Valerie Hans, Professor, Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice.
- Reid Hastie, Professor of Behavioral Science, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
- Dick Madsen, Professor of Sociology, University of California at San Diego.
- Kay Schlozman, J. Joseph Moakley Professor of Political Science, Boston College.


