Prof. Dr. Annegret Hannawa is tenured Associate Professor of Health Communication and founding Director of the Center for the Advancement of Healthcare Quality & Patient Safety (CAHQS) at the Faculty of Communication, Culture & Society, University of Lugano (USI), Switzerland. She is also founding President and Director of Research Affairs of the ISCOME Global Institute for the Advancement of Communication Science in Healthcare. Hannawa has also served as Associate Faculty at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health (USA), and as Honorary Research Associate at Cardiff University's Medical School (Wales, UK). Through extensive scientific evidence she has generated to address current "hot topics" in healthcare (e.g. digital health technologies, teamwork, big data, safety, medical errors, patient activation, family empowerment, healthy aging, patient-centered care), she has become a renowned scientific thought leader in the fields of patient safety and quality of care. She has served courts, the WHO, and health ministers across the globe with her evidence-based scientific advice. Among many prominent events, she has been invited as a speaker to the global Ministerial Patient Safety Summit, the World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit (with Bill Clinton), and the Bill & Melinda Gates "Grand Challenges" Meeting (with Bill Gates and Angela Merkel). Among her four scientific innovations, "SACCIA safe communication" and "Medical Error Disclosure Competence (MEDC)" are now considered practice standards to improve patient safety and quality of care across the globe. In her most recent grant-funded work, Hannawa has been extending her safety research to aviation and air-borne mountain recues. Professor Hannawa obtained her higher educational degrees at San Diego State University (B.A. in 2002, M.A. in 2006, Interpersonal Communication and Quantitative Research Methods) and Arizona State University (Ph.D. in 2009, Interpersonal Communication, Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods) in the USA. Prior to joining the faculty at USI in 2011, she served as tenure-track Assistant Professor of Health Communication and Empirical Research Methods at Wake Forest University in North Carolina (USA; 2009-2011). Professor Hannawa has published five books and over 50 scientific studies in a variety of distinguished journals. Her research has been recognized with several international awards. For example, in 2016, she received the 2016 Jozien Bensing Research Award for outstanding career achievements and impact. Her book "Communication Competence" was recognized with the NCA Communication Apprehension and Competence Division's 2016 Best Edited Book Award. Furthermore, four of her investigations received “Top Paper Awards” by the U.S. National Communication Association and the Swiss Patient Safety Foundation.