Evans to join journalism faculty
Suzannah Evans will join the school faculty in August as an assistant professor in environmental communication.
Evans is completing her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, where she was the Richard Cole and Roy H. Park doctoral fellow. Her research focuses on science and environmental communication, with a special interest in the role of nongovernmental organizations as information mediators. Her dissertation is titled “Low Emissions, High Concern: How journalists, activists and the public engage with climate change in the Philippines.”
Evans’ work encompasses a variety of media and a range of disciplines, including sociology. Her study on NGO messages on Twitter won the top paper in the Mass Communication and Society division at the AEJMC’s 2015 meeting. A paper based on her dissertation research is in press in the journal Environmental Communication, and a study titled “Community Structure, Economic Dependency, and News Coverage of Fishing Regulations in New England” is in press with the Newspaper Research Journal. She also is co-author with assistant professor Jessica Gall Myrick of “How MOOC Instructors View the Pedagogy and Purposes of Massive Open Online Courses,” in press in Distance Education journal.
Evans earned her master’s degree in journalism at IU in 2007. Her professional background includes working as a newspaper reporter and editor, and as editorial director of Oceana, an international environmental organization dedicated to ocean conservation. In that role, she co-authored a book with Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless titled The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lover’s Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World, with an introduction by President Bill Clinton. She also served as a researcher an editor for Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do To Save Them, by Ted Danson and Michael D’Orso, and edited Oceana: The First Decade, a photography book on ocean expeditions.