Don Waisanen
Don Waisanen is a professor in the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College, where he received the Presidential Awards for Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Scholarship. He teaches courses and workshops in public communication—including executive speech training, communication strategy, and seminars on storytelling, conflict and negotiation, and leadership and improvisation.
All of Waisanen’s research seeks to understand how communication works to promote or hinder the force of citizens’ voices. Since “every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication” (Walter Annenberg), he has written over 45 scholarly publications on the subject, covering topics from strategies in public speaking to the ways that organizations and governments can better communicate with different stakeholders. He is the author of Improv for Democracy: How to Bridge Differences and Develop the Communication and Leadership Skills Our World Needs, and forthcoming books on the intersections of strategic communication and voter suppression, participatory budgeting, and nonprofit leadership.
Previously, Waisanen worked in broadcast journalism, as a speechwriter, and continues to develop and run communication campaigns for organizations across the private and public sectors. He is the founder of Communication Upward and an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University and New York University. For the last two decades, he's also been a comedy writer and improvisational comedian at theaters in Los Angeles and New York.