Dr. Allison D Weidhaas, PhD

Dr. Allison Weidhaas, an Associate tenured professor at Rider University, directs the university’s master’s programs in communication and teaches a variety of courses. She has authored a book on female business owners and studies gender issues and how we communicate about the home/work divide. In addition to being an accomplished professor, Dr. Weidhaas is also a survivor of one of America’s worst serial date rapists. She came forward and testified in court against her rapist. Her testimony resulted in one of two jury convictions in a 2007 trial. This case received wide media coverage, from a 20/20 segment to most recently a full episode on the Discovery Channel. Additionally, the case has been cited in reference to Weinstein and Cosby based on the significance of the verdict and subsequent changes to our legal system. Dr. Weidhaas has spoken publicly about her experience, including to college students, a particular interest for her given her job as a professor and the prevalence of rape on college campuses. Dr. Weidhaas can speak not only about her experience pursuing justice, including preliminary hearings, facing her rapist in court, victim impact statements and parole hearings, but she can also provide a retrospective view of what it’s like to be a survivor years later. She holds four academic degrees including a BA in public relations, MA in public relations, MS in management and a Ph.D. in organizational communication. She authored a book on female business owners, published numerous book chapters, spoken at national conferences, been awarded university grants and has worked with the media, predominately in her roles within the public relations industry. Given the challenge of talking about rape, Dr. Weidhaas completed a speaker’s training from a Hall-of-Fame professional speaker, even though public presentations are a routine part of her job as a professor. While Dr. Weidhaas can speak about various home/work topics related to COVID (recently published on this topic in The Hill), her current interests focus on rape given Jeffrey Marsalis’ current appeal to overturn his conviction for a life sentence and an ongoing book project.