Tom Kelleher, MAMC 1996, Ph.D. 1999, has accepted the position of Chair of the Department of Advertising at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, Dean Diane McFarlin announced. He will join the College in June.

Kelleher has been a member of the faculty at the University of Hawaii for the past eight years and served as chairman of the School of Communications from 2010-2013. He also served on the faculty at the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2004-2006.

“Tom’s broad view of strategic and digital communication, combined with exceptional leadership skills, equip him well to help us advance our scholarship in advertising,” said McFarlin.  “We are excited to welcome him to the College.”

A native Floridian, Kelleher received his bachelor’s degree at Flagler College before moving to Gainesville to earn his graduate degrees.

Kelleher has designed and taught 22 different courses and has advised dozens of theses and dissertations. The AEJMC mass communication and society division named him a top-three AEJMC Promising Professor in 2001. He won the University of Hawaii College of Social Sciences Excellence in Teaching award in 2009, a PRSA Hawaii Koa Anvil Award of Excellence in 2009, the Flagler College Alumni Professional Achievement Award in 2011, and was named an Arthur W. Page Legacy Educator in 2012.

Kelleher has published in 10 different scholarly journals including Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Journal of Public Relations Research, and Public Relations Review. He served as guest editor for Journal of Public Relations Research for a 2010 special issue on social media.

His first book, “Public Relations Online: Lasting Concepts for Changing Media,” released by SAGE in 2006, was among the first scholarly textbooks in public relations to focus on the implications of social media and “Web 2.0” technologies for theory and practice. He is contracted to write his second book on public relations in the digital age with Oxford University Press. His research interests are social media in strategic organizational communication, diffusion and adoption of communication technology, public relations theory, campaigns, ethics, and teaching and learning with online media.

Posted: April 7, 2014
Category: College News
Tagged as: Tom Kelleher