Faculty member Dr. Heidi Feldman, a conversation analyst and Associate Professor of Communications Studies, was featured on the podcast “Dispatch in Depth”.

Dr. Feldman uses conversation analysis to dig into and understand interactions in settings such as 911 emergency dispatch centers and customer-service call centers. As a conversation analyst, she uses take real calls from these settings and transcribes them. Her transcriptions follow a technical method that analyzes the tasks and goals of the interaction (for example, making requests, giving instruction, and getting information), and identifies patterns by exposing features of talk (for example, question design and ordering of question types) that could have potentially created communication problems.

Her current projects include finding best practices for EMD dispatchers to work with hysterical callers to provide CPR to patients and how negotiators and 911 dispatchers can convince suicidal people to choose life.

Listen to the fascinating podcast here!