Sandra Petronio

Petronio (PhD. University of Michigan) is currently a Professor in the IU Department of Communication Studies at IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) and in the IU School of Medicine. She is also Senior Affiliate Faculty in the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics, IU Health, and an adjunct faculty in the IU School of Nursing and Informatics. Petronio’s areas of expertise are in interpersonal, health, and family communication. She studies privacy, disclosure, and confidentiality and developed the evidenced-based “Communication Privacy Management” (CPM) theory over the last 35 years. Her book on CPM theory, published in 2002 entitled, “Boundaries of Privacy: Dialectics of Disclosure” won the Gerald R. Miller Award from the National Communication Association and the book award from the International Association of Relationship Research. Her work on CPM theory has been used across a number of cultures, in many contexts, including social media, business, and the in legal domain. Petronio has published five other books, including one on HIV/AIDS and disclosure, numerous articles in scholarly journals and chapters, served as a journal editor and special issues editor for several communication journals. She received the National Communication Association’s Bernard J. Brommel Lifetime Award for Excellence in Family Communication and recently received the National Communication Association’s Mark Knapp Award in Interpersonal. She also served as President of the International Association of Relationship Research and the Western States Communication Association.