Faculty

Steven Wilson

Professor and Director of Graduate Studies

CV

CONTACT INFORMATION

Email
Office: CIS 3048

BIOGRAPHY

Steven R. Wilson (PhD, Purdue University) is a Professor in the Department of Communication and an affiliated scientist with the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University.

Steve’s research focuses on how people navigate difficult conversations (e.g., conversations in which they attempt to pursue multiple and conflicting goals, manage stigma, and project the outcomes of talking may be negative) in family, health, and workplace contexts. He also explores how people communicatively construct resilience during life disruptions. He is the author of Seeking and Resisting Compliance: Why Individuals Say What They Do When Trying to Influence Others (Sage, 2002), co-editor of New Directions in Interpersonal Communication Research (Sage, 2010), as well Reflections on Interpersonal Communication Research (Cognella, 2019, both with Sandi Smith), and author of over 100 scholarly articles and book chapters on these topics. His current research explores how military families navigate difficult conversations and enact resilience when service members return from deployment or separate from the military and how individuals in the U.S. navigate challenging conversations and create resilience following disruptions such as job loss or political disagreements. He is a fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA), and recipient of the ICA B. Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award. He is also a Distinguished Scholar within the National Communication Association (NCA) and Recipient of the NCA Mark L. Knapp Award for career contributions to the study of Interpersonal Communication. Along with Yariv Tsfati (University of Haifa, Israel), Steve served from 2020-2024 as co-editor in chief of the ICA journal Human Communication Research.

Before coming to USF, Steve served on the faculty at Michigan State, Northern Illinois, Northwestern, and Purdue Universities.

RESEARCH AREAS

Interpersonal communication, difficult conversations, military and veteran families, conflict and negotiation, resilience

RESEARCH clusters

Health Communication; Interpersonal and Relational Communication