Athena du Pré, Ph.D., is a Professor of Communication and Director of the Strategic Communication & Leadership master's degree program and the Health Communication Leadership graduate-level certificate program at the University of West Florida. Her research interests include patient-caregiver communication, coping with health crises, humor and healing, and workplace dynamics. Dr. du Pré is a former journalist and hospital public relations director. She received a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Oklahoma in 1995. Since joining the UWF faculty, she has twice been honored with Distinguished Teaching Awards by the student body. She is also coauthor, with Ron Adler and George Rodman, of Oxford's Understanding Human Communication and Essential Communication.

Barbara Cook Overton earned a Ph.D. in Health Communication from Louisiana State University and is the author of Unintended Consequences of Electronic Medical Records: An Emergency Room Ethnography (2019).