Janet Clare Beavin Bavelas (née Helmick; February 12, 1940 – December 12, 2022) was an experimental social psychologist who studied gesture, contributing to our understanding of face-to-face interaction.
[3] She received considerable recognition as a scholar: she received dozens of major research grants, many from the Canada Council or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and awards (including Outstanding Scholar of the Language and Social Interaction Division of the International Communication Association; Award for Teaching Excellence from the University of Victoria); she was an elected fellow of multiple organizations (Canadian Psychological Association, International Communication Association,[4] Royal Society of Canada); and served as President of the International Society for Gesture Studies from 2005–07.
"[8] In a newspaper profile in 1996, she debunked popular ideas about body language, describing most common assumptions as unsupported by research.
[9] Bavelas co-authored Pragmatics of human communication with Paul Watzlawick and Don Jackson in 1967, a book which established her reputation while still a graduate student, and which has been called "revolutionary".
Her long-range goal was "to find or create experimental methods that could inform and expand the study of interpersonal communication".