David Ropeik

David Ropeik reported on science and the environment for WCVB-TV in Boston from 1978 to 2000, work that brought him seven regional Emmy awards and two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia awards. He then joined the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis as its director of risk communication, teaching at the School of Public Health until 2006 and afterwards at the Harvard Extension School. RISK: A Practical Guide for Deciding What's Really Safe and What's Really Dangerous in the World Around You, written with George Gray, came from Houghton Mifflin in 2002. How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts followed in 2010, arguing that fear is shaped less by statistics than by a set of psychological factors, and that the distance between what frightens people and what actually harms them is itself a hazard. Ropeik consults independently on risk perception and risk communication.