Susanna Hornig Priest, Ph.D., holds degrees in anthropology, sociology and communications. She has studied media coverage and public opinion for risky technologies since the late 1980s, and has published around 60 research articles, chapters, and books on this and related topics.

She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is currently Director of Research for the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina, as well as an affiliate of the university's Nanocenter, and she is currently conducting NSF-funded research on public understanding of nanotechnology.