Keynotes

Richard Brown Ph.D  FACH is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. He is the Director for Communication Innovations in Health Care Laboratory, a Co-Director at Massey Health Communication and Digital Innovation Core and an Associate Editor at Patient Education and Counseling. Dr. Brown’s research has been designed to aid cancer patients and oncologists to communicate more effectively. His research largely centers on developing, implementing, and evaluating communication interventions using the oncologist-patient consultation as the unit of analysis. His research agenda has involved dual paths that have focused on understanding communication from both the patients’ and oncologists’ perspectives.

Dr. Brown’s patient-focused work has included developing and testing patient interventions, such as Question Prompt Lists and Tailored Heath Messages, to help cancer patients be more active communicators during their consultations, to promote shared decision making and patient centered care. His oncologist-focused work has involved the development, implementation, and evaluation of communication training to support sustained uptake skills. Over the past several years he has developed a specialized research focus exploring cancer clinical trial communication.
Dr. Brown continues his work exploring health disparities in communication in health care and has extended that work to include focus to amelioriate health disparities and promote health equity across diverse minority (including race and Sexual/gender minorities), geographic and socioeconomic domains.

Srikant Sarangi is Adjunct Professor at Aalborg University (Denmark), where he was Professor in Humanities and Medicine and Director of the Danish Institute of Humanities and Medicine (DIHM) between 2013 and 2021. He is also Emeritus Professor at Cardiff University (UK), where he was Professor in Language and Communication and Director of the Health Communication Research Centre between 1993 and 2013. During 2024-2025, he is Adjunct Professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. More recently, during 2022-2023, he served as Visiting Chair Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Adjunct Professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Over the years, he has been Adjunct Professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway (2017-2021); Visiting Professor at University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2017-2020); Visiting Professor at the College of Medicine, Qatar University (2017-2020); Visiting Professor under the Academic Icon scheme at University of Malay, Malaysia (2013-2015); Visiting Research Professor, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (2013-2016); Adjunct Professor at NTNU, Norway (2009-2013); and Honorary Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark (2009-2014).

His research interests include institutional and professional discourse from an applied linguistics perspective (e.g., health, social welfare, bureaucracy, education etc.); communication in genetic counselling, HIV/AIDS, telemedicine, primary care and palliative care; communication ethics; teaching and assessment of consulting and communication skills; language and identity in public life; intercultural pragmatics. He has held several project grants to study various aspects of health communication.