Patric R. Spence, Ph.D., currently serves as an associate professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. He is also a Next Generation of Hazard Researchers Fellow, and affiliated with the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters at the University of Massachusetts – Boston.

Patric’s work on crisis and risk communication has an emphasis on the roles of government, news media, and emergency management organizations during times of crisis. His work also focus on how audiences react to perceived threats from messages communicated by such groups. Patric has written extensively on issues of race and class surrounding Hurricane Katrina. He has also examined the uses, effects and best practices of social media in health, risk and crisis contexts. Additionally he is interested in the explanatory and predictive features of exemplification theory.