Prof Slam 2025

Dan Lane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara and director of the UCSB Digital Political Inequality Lab. Working at the intersection of political communication, intergroup communication, and communication technology, his current interconnected lines of research examine how political expression on social media can stimulate political engagement, improve intergroup relations, and reduce political inequality. These interests have their origins in Dan’s time as the founder of Good Eye Video, a digital storytelling company working with non-profits and social causes around the globe. His research has appeared in outlets such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Information, Communication & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Human Communication Research, and Social Media + Society.

Lisa H. Sideris is Professor and Vice-Chair in Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with affiliation in the Religious Studies Department. She received her PhD in Critical and Ethical Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University and has held faculty positions at universities on the East Coast, in Canada, and the Midwest before coming to California. Her research focuses on the ethical and spiritual significance of nature and natural processes and how “environmental” values may be captured or obscured by perspectives from religion and the sciences. Her teaching and research explore overarching ethical and existential questions of what it means to be human at a time when humanity—or a subset thereof—is transforming the planet in unprecedented and often violent ways. She is author of Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theology, and Natural Selection (Columbia University Press, 2003) and Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World (University of California Press, 2017). Sideris is also co-editor of an interdisciplinary collection of essays on the life and work of environmental pioneer Rachel Carson, titled Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge (SUNY 2008). Wonder and humility are frequent themes in Sideris’s writing, inspired in part by Rachel Carson whose work launched the joint movement to safeguard environmental and human health in America and abroad. She is active in a variety of environmental initiatives at the national and international level and currently serves as President of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, the leading professional organization of scholars working at the intersection of religion and the environment.

Dr. Miriam Eady Thompson is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has a Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of Arizona. Dr. Thompson is licensed psychologist, Nationally Certified School Psychologist, and the Director of Mind and Behavior Assessment Clinic (MBAC) at UCSB. As a teaching professor and assessment clinic director, Dr. Thompson trains doctoral students in the ethical administration of standardized psychological assessments. Dr. Thompson enjoys teaching and teaches 5 courses a year on standardized assessment and psychological bases of functioning. In terms of her scholarship, she is currently focused on trends in graduate students’ training, viewpoint diversity, and open inquiry. Regarding Dr. Thompson’s postdoctoral training, she completed two different postdoctoral fellowships; in 2017 completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Neurodevelopmental Assessment of Young Children at the Brenner Center at William James College in Newton, Massachusetts and in 2018 she completed a second postdoctoral fellowship at the Boston Juvenile Court Clinic (BJCC) at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. Finally, prior to arriving at UCSB, Dr. Thompson was an assistant professor in the School Psychology Department at William James College in Newton, Massachusetts.

​​Dr. Ty Vernon the Director of UCSB's Koegel Autism Center, an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, a licensed psychologist, autism researcher, and neurodiversity advocate. He is also a two-time UCSB Alum (BA in Psychology in 2003 & Ph.D. in Counseling, Clinical, & School Psychology in 2010) who completed his post-doctoral training at the Yale Child Study Center. Dr. Vernon's research focuses on creating and testing high impact, strength-based, neurodiversity-affirming therapeutic interventions for autistic children, adults, and their families to maximize self-determination skills and overall quality of life.

Brandon Woo is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at UCSB. His research program asks how humans come to understand others' actions and minds, particularly in social contexts. Through studies of infants and young children, his research aims to reveal children's early-emerging knowledge of other people and to characterize the developmental foundations of human learning, cooperation, and social life more broadly.