Shaunak Sastry

Professor & Inaugural Director of the Pahl Center
Sastry

I am a scholar of global health communication, with a specialization in community-partnered health interventions and culture-centered approaches. I teach courses on globalization, health, and community-engaged research methods.

Bio

Dr. Shaunak Sastry is Professor of Communication and Inaugural Director of the Pahl Center for the Study of Critical Social Issues at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Sastry is the First Vice-President of the National Communication Association. His award-winning global health communication research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Waterhouse Family Institute, and the Center for Clinical & Translational Science and Training. His areas of research interests include pandemic governance, health impacts of climate change, and community-engaged health research. Sastry currently serves as Co-Director of the Community Engagement Core of the Cincinnati Center for Collaboration on Climate and Community for Health (C4H), which is an NIH-funded P20 research center dedicated to studying the interactions between extreme weather, climate change, and health. His work has been published in a range of top-ranked Communication journals, including the Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, Communication Theory, Health Communication, Journal of Health Communication, and so on. He has previously served as Senior Editor of the journal Health Communication, and sits on the editorial boards of several leading journals in Communication.

Education

Ph.D. (2012), Purdue University, Communication
MBA (2006), Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India, Communications Management
B.A. (2004), St. Xavier's College, University of Mumbai, India, Psychology

Sastry_Vita_2026_Jan.pdf633.34 KB
Research Topic(s)
Health & Wellness
Health Communication
Globalization
Community Engagement
Marginalization and inequality
Collective Action
Environmental/science communication

Alison Oliver, Alan Crawley, and Soumyajit De Win HICSS Top Paper Award

2026-01-16

Alison Oliver, Alan Crawley, and Soumyajit have received a Top Paper Award at the 2026 HICSS. Their paper, titled "Mapping the Moral Foundations of Machines: A Vignette-Based Inquiry into Moral Reasoning Across Six Large Language Model Platforms" will be part of the Proceedings of the 59th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Laurent Wang Joins U. Texas As Assistant Professor

2025-12-05

Laurent Wang has been hired, beginning Fall 2026 as Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations, located within the Moody College of Communication.

Walid Afifi Granted A 2025 National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar Award

2025-12-04

Walid Afifi, a professor of Communication and Assistant Dean of Social Sciences here at UCSB, was elected a National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar at the November 2025 annual conference. The award is the highest honor granted by the organization each year. This award highlights those with outstanding records in research, teaching, and service. For full story, see https://www.socialsciences.ucsb.edu/news/national-communication-association-grants-distinguished-scholar-award-dr-walid-afifi

Subscribe to