Faculty, staff, and students recently attended the UMBrella Speaker Series featuring best-selling author Deborah Tannen. "Can We Talk? Women and Men at Work: Talking from 9 to 5: How Women’s and Men’s Conversational Styles Affect Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Credit, and What Gets Done at Work."

Tannen, PhD, MA, spoke about how men’s and women’s conversational styles differ to conclude a year of communications workshops by the UMBrella (UMB Roundtable on Empowerment in Leadership and Leveraging Aspirations) Group.

Check out video, photos, and news from the event.

Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University and the author of many books and articles about how the language of everyday conversation affects relationships.  

She is best known as the author of You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, which was on the New York Times best-seller list for nearly four years, including eight months at No. 1, and has been translated into 31 languages. This is the book that brought gender differences in communication style to the forefront of public awareness. Her most recent book, You Were Always Mom's Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives, also a New York Times best-seller, received a Books for a Better Life Award and was featured on 20/20 and NPR's Morning Edition.

Among her other books, You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation spent 10 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list; Talking From 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work was a New York Times Business best-seller; The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words received the Common Ground Book Award; and I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You're All Adults received a Books for a Better Life Award.

Tannen is a frequent guest on television and radio news and information shows, including The Colbert Report, 20/20, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Rachael Ray Talk Show, PBS NewsHour, Charlie Rose, Oprah, Hardball, Nightline, and many shows on CNN and NPR, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, The Diane Rehm Show, and Fresh Air. She has been featured in and written for most major newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA TODAY, People, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

Tannen is one of only six in Georgetown University's College of Arts and Sciences who hold the distinguished rank of University Professor. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University and spent a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.; she has twice been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif. The recipient of five honorary doctorates, she is a member of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation Board of Directors.

In addition to her seven books for general audiences, Tannen is author or editor of 16 books and more than 100 articles for scholarly audiences. She also has published poems, short stories, and personal essays. Her first play, An Act of Devotion, is included in The Best American Short Plays 1993-1994. It was produced, together with her play Sisters, by Horizons Theatre in Arlington, Va.