Alex Russell

Alex Russell 

Department Editor, Self & Society

Alex Russell covers the College's departments, centers and programs in many of the social sciences, including: Cognitive Science, Communication, Economics, History, International Relations, Linguistics, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, the Center for Mind and Brain, the Center for Poverty and Inequality Research and the Global Migration Center.

Since 2012, Russell has communicated UC Davis social sciences research for uptake and impact through news and feature stories, policy briefs, reports, social media campaigns and other forms. He has served as a writer at the Graduate School of Management and led communications for the Center for Poverty and Inequality Research and the Institute for Social Sciences. Immediately prior to joining the College of Letters and Science, he served as communications lead for a $30 million federally funded research program in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences focused on international food security.

He received a B.A. Literature from UC Santa Cruz and a M.A. in English from the UC Davis Graduate Creative Writing Program. He is a member of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW).

Full Portfolio

Election 2024

UC Davis Media Experts for Election 2024

  • by Karen Nikos-Rose and Alex Russell
The UC Davis College of Letters and Science has political scientists, historians, security experts and others who can address various issues in the elections this year. This expert guide was initially published in February and again updated in September 2024.
Disinformation illustration

Closing the Free Speech Loophole for Hate Speech and Disinformation

  • by Alex Russell
In a new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Jurisprudence, UC Davis philosopher and legal scholar Mark Reiff gives new insight into the source of the right to free speech and the limits that this right contains. The paper explains how these limits show us that hate speech and disinformation are not protected by the right, but rather must be limited to ensure all of our fundamental freedoms.
archival work

Preserving Human Rights Archives in Peru: UC Davis Leads New Digitization Project to Safeguard an Endangered History

  • by Alex Russell
Charles Walker, a professor of history in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, was recently awarded a $100,000 grant to digitize archives from three major human rights organizations in Peru. With this funding from the UCLA Library’s Modern Endangered Archives Program, this project will preserve documents that chart a history of human rights in the country.
US-Mexico border wall illustration

Weaving Facts Through the Complexity of Global Migration

  • by Alex Russell
Migration is a powerful force for shaping society. It is also a flashpoint for anger and prejudice in every country and context, and these responses can blur the reasons why people relocate their lives and what their arrival means for the places where they settle. The UC Davis Global Migration Center weaves facts and human experience into the complexity of how we think about migration, both in the U.S. and globally.