New Director for Annenberg Public Policy Center

Since its founding, the Annenberg Public Policy Center has been a leader in examining public opinion, fact-checking, and other forms of communication across politics and civics, health and science, adolescent risk, and climate. Under Kathleen Hall Jamieson, it has produced influential research on topics as diverse as civics education and campaign finance reform, children’s television programming and civility in Congress, suicide reporting guidelines for news media, and messaging about vaccine policy and substance use.

On July 1st, 2026, Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor Dolores Albarracín assumed the policy center’s directorship after three decades of Jamieson’s leadership.

An award-winning social psychologist with appointments at the Annenberg School and the School of Arts and Sciences’ psychology department, Albarracín directs the Social Action Lab at Penn as well as the policy center’s Communication Science division. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Albarracín is the author or co-author of six books; she has received numerous career awards, and in 2025 was a recipient of the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Social Sciences.

“I am delighted to welcome APPC’s new director, Dolores Albarracín,” said Sarah Banet-Weiser, Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication. “Dolores is an exceptional scholar whose work on communication, behavior, and public health is especially vital in this moment.” 

Albarracín has focused her career on understanding psychological processes related to communication while also finding ways to use this knowledge to reduce risky behavior.

“Directing the policy center is a true honor, particularly following Kathleen’s illustrious term,” Albarracín said. “I am grateful to Kathleen and Dean Banet-Weiser for their trust and for the support of the Penn community. Today we’re confronted with challenges to communication policy, to the values that hold us together, to how public health operates in the U.S. Taking the helm at this point is important to me in upholding evidence-based practices.”

As the director of APPC, Albarracín will develop a new communication policy initiative to understand how policy communicates attitudes and how communicating policies impacts behavior. The initiative will focus on private and public behavior. It will encompass research on how policies are communicated; natural experiments assessing the impact of communication efforts following the introduction of policies; and empirical research to develop and test new theories about how and when to communicate the introduction and implementation of policies to different communities. The center will begin a new grant program to fund interdisciplinary projects on these critical issues.

“I am particularly excited about her new communication policy initiative and look forward to working closely with her and her team as we think together about how to communicate policy more effectively to the communities it most directly impacts,” said Banet-Weiser.

Over more than three decades as director, Jamieson developed a mission and secured leadership for eight permanently endowed program areas. APPC’s research divisions currently focus on Communication Science, Institutions of Democracy, and Climate Communication. The center includes three engagement initiatives: the Annenberg Health and Risk Communication Institute, the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics, and the Science of Science Communication Institute. The center also is home to FactCheck.org and the Annenberg Center for Advanced Study in Communication.

In June 1993, publisher, philanthropist, and ambassador Walter H. Annenberg announced what was then the largest gift to private education in U.S. history, $365 million, to several institutions. The gift included $120 million to his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania — $100 million to endow ASC, and $20 million to create APPC, to be directed by Jamieson.

Jamieson will remain as director emerita, leading the Science of Science Communication Institute and the Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) survey, which won the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s 2026 Policy Impact Award. She will also continue her work with FactCheck.org, which she co-founded, and will continue to conduct research and teach at the Annenberg School.

Jamieson noted, “I’m delighted to be able to concentrate my time on those areas of primary interest to me, including a continuing role in FactCheck.org and SciCheck. I am confident the center’s director and other leaders will chart their areas’ paths forward while remaining true to the founding mission sculpted by our founders – conducting research that explains the human impacts of communication and translating it into engagement that matters.”