Expert

Dawn O. Braithwaite

Willa Cather Professor & Chair of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Phone:
402-472-2069
Email:
dbraithwaite@unl.edu
Topics of Expertise:
Cohabitation, Committed Relationships & Marriage / Couples Conflict, Separation & Divorce / Step-Families

Dawn O. Braithwaite is a Willa Cather Professor of and Chair of Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is a specialist in interpersonal and family communication, studying how people in personal and family relationships interact and negotiate family change and challenges in understudied and changing families, communication rituals, and dialectics of relating in stepfamilies, among voluntary kin, and by family kinkeepers. Her early work focused on communication of people with disabilities. Dr. Braithwaite’s research expertise is centered in interpretive qualitative methodologies. Dr. Braithwaite has authored over 100 articles and is co-author or co-editor of five books including Family Communication: Cohesion and Change and Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication. She received the National Communication Association’s Brommel Award for Outstanding Contributions in Family Communication, the division’s Book Award, the UNL College of Arts & Sciences Award for Outstanding Research in Social Science. Dr. Braithwaite was named the Western States Communication Association Distinguished Scholar in 2014. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. She is a Past President of the Western States Communication Association, received the association’s Distinguished Service Award, and was President of the National Communication Association.