Michael Stohl joined the Department of Communication in January 2002. Formerly he was Dean of International Programs (from 1992) and Professor of Political Science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he had taught since 1972. Dr. Stohl's research focuses on organizational and political communication with special reference to terrorism, human rights and global relations. Dr. Stohl is a Fellow of the International Communication Association and has been the recipient of numerous other fellowships and awards, including the International Communication Association Applied/Public Policy Research Award for career work on State Terrorism and Human Rights in 2011, the International Communication Association 2008 Outstanding Article Award for Stohl, C. and Stohl, M. 2007, “Networks of Terror: Theoretical Assumptions and Pragmatic Consequences” Communication Theory 47,2: 93-124,  Fulbright Fellowship for International Education Administrators in Japan and Korea in 1989, a Senior Fulbright Fellowship to lecture at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1983, a Fulbright Fellowship to teach at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Arhus, Denmark in 2013 and the Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Year Fellowship in 1971-72. He has presented numerous invited lectures at universities and research institutes in Europe, Australia and New Zealand as well as the United States, including those at the Danish Commission on Security and Disarmament Affairs, Uppsala University, Sweden; State University of Leiden, The Netherlands; The Australian National University; the U.S. Defense Intelligence College; and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. He has been a guest commentator on National Public Radio, NBC, and CBS and has been interviewed for stories on terrorism and human rights by numerous American, European and Australian newspapers and magazines. He was a member of the Search for Common Ground sponsored United States-Soviet Union Task Force on International Terrorism which met in Moscow and Santa Monica in January and September 1989.  He was Chair of the UCSB Department of Communication from 2004-2010, the Director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at UCSB from 2014-2019 and is an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Political Science and the Department of Global Studies at UCSB.

Research Interests and Projects (e.g., Terrorism, Human Rights, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Organizational Visibility).