Dietram Scheufele

Dietram A. Scheufele is a German-American social scientist and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research. He is also a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. Prior to joining UW–Madison, Scheufele was a tenured faculty member at Cornell University. His research spans science communication, political communication, misinformation, and the governance of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. In 2026 he resigned from UW–Madison following a university investigation and joined Arizona State University.

Education Scheufele completed his undergraduate training in Publizistik (with minors in political science and business) at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, before receiving an M.A. in Journalism & Mass Communication and Ph.D. in Mass Communications, with a minor in political science, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Career Scheufele began his academic career as a visiting assistant professor and then assistant professor at Cornell University in 1999 where he was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2003, before joining the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty as a full professor in 2004.Over his career, Scheufele has held visiting and fellowship appointments at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, Dresden University of Technology, LMU Munich, the University of Münster, the University of Vienna, and the University of Utah.

Research Scheufele's publications include work on framing theory, participatory democracy, and the science of science communication. He is the author or co-author of over 300 articles and monographs, and one of the most widely cited experts in the fields of science communication, health communication, political communication, misinformation, and science & technology policy. Since 2012, Scheufele has co-organized five National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine colloquia on the Science of Science Communication and co-edited related special issues of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the science of science communication in 2013, 2014, 2019, 2021, and 2025.

Scheufele's consulting portfolio includes work for DeepMind, PBS, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and Porter Novelli, as well as various private philanthropies.

Awards

Scheufele is an elected member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a lifetime associate of the U.S. National Research Council. Scheufele is also an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Communication Association, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. In 2024, he was named Harold Lasswell Fellow by the American Academy of Political and Social Science. and also received the Hilldale Award for distinguished contributions to teaching, research, and service in the social sciences at UW–Madison.

He has won teaching awards from both universities at which he has held tenured appointments, including the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Young Faculty Teaching Award, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Spitzer Excellence in Teaching Award, as well as the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's Krieghbaum Under-40 and MC&S Promising Professor awards.

Resignation from UW–Madison In September 2025 the University of Wisconsin–Madison completed an investigation into complaints filed by three female students. It did not find that Scheufele had violated the university's policies on sexual harassment or on hostile and intimidating behavior, but concluded that he had violated its policy on consensual relationships and had not maintained honesty and integrity under a faculty policy. He resigned in August 2026 under a settlement in which neither party admitted wrongdoing, and related Title IX charges were dismissed. Scheufele disputed the findings, calling the claims unsubstantiated; the complainants said through their attorney that they stood by them and considered the process unfair. He joined Arizona State University's School of Social and Behavioral Sciences.