Panel:

Usha Lee McFarling, a science journalist for nearly two decades, has worked at the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. She has specialized in the coverage of climate change and in 2007 won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Writing for co-writing a multi-media series in the Los Angeles Times titled “Altered Oceans.” She earned an M.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in the field of animal behavior and earned a B.A. degree in biology from Brown University.

Leah Ceccarelli, Associate Professor, is a rhetorical critic and theorist. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary and public discourse about science. She also explores metacritical issues surrounding rhetorical inquiry as a mode of research. She is the recipient of several research awards, including the Rhetoric Society of America's book award and the National Communication Association's Golden Anniversary Monograph award. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American Public Address, Public Debate, Rhetorical Criticism, Classical Rhetoric, and Rhetoric of Science. She is adjunct in the Department of Technical Communication, and is an affiliated faculty member with the Institute for Public Health Genetics and the Ph.D. Program in Theory and Criticism.