COMM Professor Presents Prestigious Jefferson Science Fellowship Lecture

Erich Sommerfeldt delivers the 2021 Jefferson Science Fellowship Lecture.

Associate Professor Erich Sommerfeldt delivered the prestigious Jefferson Science Fellowship Lecture on November 9, 2021. Entitled "'Information is Span, Networking is Strategic': Building and Measuring Meaningful Networks in Public Diplomacy," Sommerfeldt's lecture sought to position network approaches as valuable for public diplomacy explaining how the concept: (1) helps to create a realistic plan for strengthening a community, (2) identifies strategically placed actors that can influence others in their home communities, and (3) can serve as a tool to assess a strategic operating environment and contributions towards strategic goal attainment.

Sommerfeldt is serving as a Jefferson Science Fellow. Sommerfeldt serves as an advisor with the Research and Evaluation Unit of the Office of Research, Policy, Planning, and Resources (R/PRR). R/PRR provides long-term strategic planning and performance measurement capability for public diplomacy and public affairs programs. In one of his responsibilities, Sommerfeldt is helping to craft new public diplomacy doctrine to be taught at the Foreign Service Institute. He is also supporting new surveys that measure the relationship between networking behaviors and support for democracy worldwide.

Sommerfeldt's lecture is available here.