BIO

Kristen Alley Swain, associate professor of Integrated Marketing Communications, holds a PhD from the University of Florida. Her research examines how news media, social media, and organizations frame risk messages amid large-scale public threats. Her work explores how media narratives shape public understanding of COVID-19 misinformation, transgender health, climate change, carbon capture, HIV, freight spills, environmental justice, bioterrorism, and food security. She also developed original ethical decision-making and risk explanation models for journalists, directed a science journalism center, and received UM's Distinguished Service Award in Sustainability. Her scholarly work appears in leading journals and major academic books, supported by grants from the CDC, US-DOT, and national security organizations. She teaches health communication, media/PR ethics, advanced IMC writing, research methods, and theory. Her commitment to sustainability education is demonstrated through her students’ production of 200+ stories for Planet Forward and 70+ audio clips featured in a Smithsonian soundscape exhibit. As an Environmental Studies faculty member, she will soon launch a campus “Sustainability Storytellers” campus organization. With professional experience in public relations and print journalism, she has held editorial/writing positions at Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, Oxford Eagle, Daily Journal (Tupelo), Tuscaloosa News, and Sun.ONE, the world's first university-based online newspaper.