• A student speaking in front of a class.
  • Students studying their notes together.
  • A student speaking in front of a class.
  • A student walking around class giving a presentation.
  • An instructor talking to his class.

Public Communication Initiative

We provide workshops, consultations, and content creation to help faculty, staff, and students develop skills in adapting messages and information to various audiences in oral, visual, and mediated channels through the complementary arts of persuasion and storytelling.

Topics of Expertise

  • Adapting technical messages for public audiences
  • Having difficult conversations - dialogue and civility
  • How to tell compelling stories
  • Writing for public audiences - social media, digital media, and print media
  • Building persuasive arguments
  • Oral and visual presentation skills
  • Talking to media and doing interviews

Workshop Rates

  • Half day: 4 hours
  • Whole day: 8 hours
  • Weekly: 5 whole days
Under 35 participants
  • 1-3 hours: $400/hour
  • 4 hours: $1,280
  • 8 hours: $2,400
  • Weekly: $11,200
35-70 participants
  • 1-3 hours: $600/hour
  • 4 hours: $1,920
  • 8 hours: $3,600
  • Weekly: $16,800
70+ participants
  • 1-3 hours: $800/hour
  • 4 hours: $2,560
  • 8 hours: $4,800
  • Weekly: $22,400

Other Services

Consultations and Edits for Existing Work

Billed per working hour.

  • Documents, op-eds, publications: $200/hour
  • Grants: $200/hour
  • Presentations: $200/hour
Content Creation

Billed per hour of content created.

  • Videos and content for classes: $1000/hour
  • Lectures (audio and audio-visual): $1000/hour
  • Presentations: $1000/hour

Research

The Public Communication Initiative conducts and collaborates on original research regarding public communication, communication strategies, and topics of interest to the local community. Current research initiatives include a climate survey with Governor Sisolak's office about Nevadans' opinions on climate change, strategies for communicating about vaccination safety, and scientists' perceptions of public understanding regarding nuclear energy.

Take the Survey

Meet the Team

Emma Frances Bloomfield, Ph.D.

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Dr. Bloomfield (Ph.D., University of Southern California) researches the rhetoric of science and environmental communication, particularly in regards to climate change, human origins, religion, and the body. She teaches classes on rhetoric and persuasion and is an advocate of inclusive pedagogy. Details on recent publications and ongoing research projects are available on her personal website.
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Michael Easter

Michael Easter
Michael Easter teaches journalism, with a special emphasis on health media. Before his role at UNLV, he was a senior-level editor at Men’s Health magazine. There, he brainstormed, wrote, and edited stories about human health and performance, and his work was read by nearly 25 million people in 50 countries each month. At Men’s Health, he also led a digital transition team, acted as a brand editor…
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Laekyn Kelley

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Laekyn Kelley is a Graduate Assistant for the Public Communication Initiative and an MA student in Communication Studies. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Earth and Environmental Science from UNLV’s Department of Geoscience in 2019. She hopes to contribute to more broad and equitable understanding of scientific topics by studying the way scientific information flows dynamically…
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Paul La Plante, Ph.D

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Dr. La Plante is the Science Outreach Coordinator for the Public Communication Initiative. He is a Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics Fellow and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a computational astrophysicist who studies the Epoch of Reionization and is a member of the HERA radio telescope and Simons Observatory collaborations.
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Hannah Patenaude

Hannah Patenaude
Hannah Patenaude is a Graduate Research Assistant with the Radiochemistry Program at UNLV studying electrochemistry applied to advanced nuclear reactor designs in hopes of mitigating the effects of global climate change. In collaboration with the Idaho National Laboratory, she works within the Public Communication Initiative combining her undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Communication…
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Testimonials

"UNLV Law students are required to teach free legal information classes on a number of difficult subjects to members of the public who are seeking information and access to justice. The students need to be engaging and able to make legal jargon understandable to their audience. We have seen an improvement in our students' abilities to make the information engaging and understandable thanks to the training they received from Professors Bloomfield and Easter. We now include their training in our orientation every semester."

Christine Smith, Associate Dean for Public Service, Compliance and Administration, William S. Boyd School of Law

"The general law school education teaches the students legal jargon generally understood by lawyers, judges and other professionals in the legal community.  It's important for the student to learn these terms, concepts and phrases in that it assists them in analyzing legal issues.  However, it does a poor job in teaching the students to communicate these principles to ordinary people in the community.  These are the people that we represent and are the people that serve on juries.   The class taught by Professors Bloomfield and Easter help the students bridge the gap and teach legal jargon in an understandable way.  These skills help demystify the legal profession so that people can understand the law and the administration of justice."

Cliff Marcek, Coordinator of Community Service, William S. Boyd School of Law

"The Public Communications Initiative (PCI) has helped our department enhance students’ experience in our Emergency and Crisis Management Master’s program. The PCI faculty provide hands-on training to students focused on improving communication skills. Students learn to deliver more effective press briefings, community notifications, and to lead groups with complex structures, all of which are important aspects in an emergency management career."

Joel D. Lieberman, Ph.D., Chair of Department of Criminal Justice, Greenspun College of Urban Affairs

I had to give an acknowledgment speech after receiving a national award. Although I have experience and feel comfortable discussing my own research, I had never written nor presented this kind of talk before. The PCI helped me write an eloquent and personal acknowledgment speech in a very timely manner.

Arya Udry, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Geoscience, College of Sciences

Additional Information

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