David M. Berube

David M. Berube is an American scholar specializing in science and technology communication, risk communication, and public understanding of emerging technologies.

He is currently a professor of communication at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina and serves as the director of the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCOST) Project. His research focuses on how the public comprehends complex scientific information, particularly regarding nanotechnology, climate change, and public health issues.

Education

He received an MA from Montclair State University in 1978 and a BA/BS from Seton Hall University in 1975.His doctorate is from New York University and he has studied and taught communication and cognitive psychology and created the term SEIN (Social and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology) in his book NanoHype.

Career

Since 2008, he directs a program titled the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCOST). PCOST has focused on consumer and public understanding of highly complicated science and engineering communication activities. He teaches limited graduate coursework (due to his grant responsibilities).

Prior to NCSU, he was a professor at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina and was a lecturer at Weber State University (UT), Trinity University (TX), and the University of Vermont. During the last 30 years through 2007, he served as a national and international intercollegiate debating coach with many national records coaching over 40 formal national and international debating topics. He edited one of the most successful collegiate debate workbook companies in America and he is a coordinating editor with the Journal of Nanoparticle Research where he supervises social science methodologies. He served on the US FDA Risk Communication Advisory Committee and on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Toxicology Program. These experiences and many others have provided him with a broad exposure and understanding of many subjects and has made him the “outside-in” person who is recruited to deal with a host of interdisciplinary research activities.

After coaching two national championships at the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence in 2004 & 2005 and promoted to full professor, he returned to studying science and technology communication and cognitive psychology. This let him to participate as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on an extensive series of National Science Foundation grants examining how the public unpacks and makes sense of complicated technical information in emerging science, especially the field of nanotechnology. He has authored and co-authored many articles on risk perceptions associated with nanoparticles both quantitative and critical in nature.

In 1997, he wrote the famous "Berube 97" article on dehumanization that has been used by high school and collegiate debaters in almost every single debate thereafter. In 2006, he wrote Nanohype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2005, 500 pp. and received over 30 published reviews,. In 2015 he broadened his interests to include public understanding of synthetic biology and became a research fellow with the Genetic Engineering and Society Center on the campus of North Carolina State. In 2021 he edited Pandemic Communication and Resiliency for Springer/NATURE and in 2023 he wrote a sole author work: Pandemic Risk Management: Lessons from the Zika Virus.

Berube has worked on a series of projects for the corporate world including Director of Communications for the International Council on Nanotechnology with partners including Intel, Swiss RE, Mitsubishi, L'Oreal, Procter & Gamble, etc. He has directed social media projects that produced White Paper level publications for the National Science Foundation and the International Food Information Council. He has directly consulted with Kraft Foods International on media protocols and has spoken as an invited lecturer to the Pentagon, Pharma, the Institute for Defense Analysis, etc. He has worked as a PI, CoPI, or investigator on approximately $20 million in grants and worked on a major NSA-funded grant in the Laboratory for Analytical Science at NCSU where he served on the Mission Enabling Workgroup and the Supply Line Workgroup. He is a CoPI with the Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network (RTNN) as the social and ethical director and assessment officer coordinating in a major infrastructure grant under the National Nanotechnology Initiative's (NNI) National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure in a team headed found in North Carolina's Research Triangle.

The RTNN involves labs on three campuses: North Carolina State, UNC at Chapel Hill, and Duke. by the Analytical Instrumentation Facility at North Carolina State University including labs at UNC and Duke, specifically Chapel Hill Analytical and Fabrication Facility and (CHANL) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Shared Materials Instrumentation Facility (SMIF) at Duke University.

Berube has consulted as a jobber with the Gerson Lehrman Group and others. He manages the Center for Emerging Technologies, LLC, a consultancy registered in North Carolina.

In 2023, he was elected as a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in their Section on General Interest in Science & Engineering.

Research

Berube has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over $20 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) grants.

His research includes studying public understanding of toxicological information related to nanoparticles and developing strategies for effective science communication.

He has also edited and authored works on pandemic communication and resilience, including the 2021 book Pandemic Communication and Resilience and the 2023 book Pandemic Risk Management: Lessons from the Zika Virus. Additionally, Berube has served on advisory committees for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Toxicology Program, providing expertise on risk communication and public health issues.

Beyond academia, Berube has contributed to public discourse through various media outlets.

He has written over 100 articles for major newspapers and has been involved in intercollegiate debate coaching, leading teams to national championships. His expertise in science communication has led to invitations to speak at national and international conferences, as well as consultations with organizations such as the International Council on Nanotechnology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Selected publications

• Berube, David (September 30, 2006). Nano Hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz. Manas Publications. p. 436. ISBN 978-8170493099.
• Linkov, Igor; Trump, Benjamin D.; Anklam, Elke; Berube, David; Boisseasu, Patrick; Cummings, Christopher; Ferson, Scott; Florin, Marie-Valentine; Goldstein, Bernard; Hristozov, Danail; Jensen, Keld Alstrup; Katalagarianakis, Georgios; Kuzma, Jennifer; Lambert, James H.; Malloy, Timothy (2018-05-04). "Comparative, collaborative, and integrative risk governance for emerging technologies". Environment Systems and Decisions. 38 (2): 170–176. doi:10.1007/s10669-018-9686-5. ISSN 2194-5403. PMC 10569133.
• Borm, Paul J.A.; Berube, David (2008). "A tale of opportunities, uncertainties, and risks". Nano Today. 3 (1–2): 56–59. doi:10.1016/s1748-0132(08)70016-1. ISSN 1748-0132.
• Berube, David M. (2008-03-11). "Rhetorical gamesmanship in the nano debates over sunscreens and nanoparticles". Journal of Nanoparticle Research. 10 (S1): 23–37. doi:10.1007/s11051-008-9362-7. ISSN 1388-0764.
• Cummings, Christopher L.; Berube, David M.; Lavelle, Mary E. (2013). "Influences of individual-level characteristics on risk perceptions to various categories of environmental health and safety risks". Journal of Risk Research. 16 (10): 1277–1295. doi:10.1080/13669877.2013.788544. ISSN 1366-9877.
• Schwartzman, Roy; Ross, Derek G.; Berube, David M. (2011-02-01). "Rhetoric and Risk". Poroi. 7 (1): 1–9. doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1087. ISSN 2151-2957.
• Berube, David M.; Cummings, Christopher L.; Frith, Jordan H.; Binder, Andrew R.; Oldendick, Robert (2011-03-19). "Comparing nanoparticle risk perceptions to other known EHS risks". Journal of Nanoparticle Research. 13 (8): 3089–3099. doi:10.1007/s11051-011-0325-z. ISSN 1388-0764.
• Berube, David; Cummings, Christopher; Cacciatore, Michael; Scheufele, Dietram; Kalin, Jason (2010-09-30). "Characteristics and classification of nanoparticles: Expert Delphi survey". Nanotoxicology. 5 (2): 236–243. doi:10.3109/17435390.2010.521633. ISSN 1743-5390.
• Berube, David M. (2009), "Intuitive Toxicology: The Public Perception of Nanoscience", Nanotechnology & Society, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 91–108, doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6209-4_5, ISBN 978-1-4020-9385-2, retrieved 2025-07-03
• Berube, D.; Shipman, J.D. (2004). "Denialism". IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. 23 (4): 22–26. doi:10.1109/mtas.2004.1371635. ISSN 0278-0097.
• Berube, David M., ed. (2021). "Pandemic Communication and Resilience". Risk, Systems and Decisions. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-77344-1. ISBN 978-3-030-77343-4. ISSN 2626-6717.
• Berube, David M. (2008-11-20). "The public acceptance of nanomedicine: a personal perspective". WIREs Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology. 1 (1): 2–5. doi:10.1002/wnan.30. ISSN 1939-5116.
• Berube, David M. (2021), "A Story About Toilet Paper: Pandemic Panic-Buying and Public Resilience", Pandemic Communication and Resilience, Risk, Systems and Decisions, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 143–165, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-77344-1_9, ISBN 978-3-030-77343-4, retrieved 2025-07-03
• Berube, David M. (2018-04-27). "How social science should complement scientific discovery: lessons from nanoscience". Journal of Nanoparticle Research. 20 (5) 120. doi:10.1007/s11051-018-4210-x. ISSN 1388-0764.