Dr. Dunbar is a Professor of Communication at UCSB. She teaches courses in nonverbal and interpersonal communication, communication theory, and deception detection.  She is also Affiliate Faculty in the Center for Information, Technology & Society; the Center for Digital Games Research; and the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences program.  She has received over $13 Million in research funding from agencies such as the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Center for Identification Technology Research. She has published over 65 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and has presented over 100 papers at National and International conferences. Her research has appeared in top journals in her discipline including Communication Research, Communication Monographs, and Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication as well as interdisciplinary journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems and Computers in Human Behavior. She has served on the editorial board of over a dozen disciplinary journals and as the Chair of the Nonverbal Division of the National Communication Association in 2014-2016.  She is the current Chair of the Communication Department at UCSB.

Patricia Fancher is a lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she teaches and researches digital media, technical rhetoric, and feminist rhetorics. Fancher serves as the Director of UCSB's Leadership and Advocacy Certificate Program (LACP), which equips student leaders with strategies and skills for writing, public speaking, and career. Her research has been published in Rhetoric Review, Present Tense, and Enculturation. In addition to her research on digital media, she also designs and produces feminist digital media, which can be found in the Fall 2015 and 2016 issues of Peitho journal. She is the Director of Outreach for the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition.

"For centuries," says Renan Larue, "generations of French writers, politicians, clergymen, and intellectuals were shaped by rhetoricians who took their own savoir-faire from the great orators of Antiquity. It was not a matter of teaching students how to manipulate their audiences or readers but, rather, how to express their ideas simply elegantly, and accurately, to reject informal speech and jargon, and to prize clarity above all else. Indeed, in the French Department, rhetoric enables students to better organize and express their thoughts and ideas, to be more efficient and clear when speaking and, most importantly, to attract and retain the attention of their interlocutors: friends, colleagues, clients, or the general public. Today, the French passion for debate and verbal sparring—especially in politics—continues to inspire cultural fascination with the art of speaking; and its role in society has never been more important.  As much as gastronomy and fashion, the rhetoric of public speaking plays an integral part in the art of French living."

Carole Paul, Senior Lecturer and Director of Museum Studies, History of Art and Architecture.  Paul is a scholar of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art and architecture in Italy and the history of museums and collections.  The Museum Studies program that she directs examines the history, functions, and ideologies of museums and collections of different kinds and offers practical training for a variety of museum and related careers.  Public speaking skills are essential to such careers, which require the ability to effectively engage diverse audiences, from the general public to a board of trustees.

Annika Speer is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Theater, Film, and Digital Production at the University of California, Riverside where she runs the undergraduate public speaking program. She received her PhD in Theatre Studies with a doctoral emphasis in Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Communication at University of Connecticut.