Dr. María E. Len-Ríos
About: As associate dean, Dr. Len-Ríos oversees assessment and accreditation, undergraduate services and curriculum, experiential learning and student career services, college-level promotion and tenure, scholarships and special awards, strategic planning, faculty development, and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, as well as other duties as assigned. She chairs the College’s Standing Committee on Diversity and is faculty advisor to the College’s student chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ). Dr. Len-Ríos teaches public relations, graduate seminars, and cross-cultural journalism courses. In 2019, she co-authored the co-edited textbook, “Cross-Cultural Journalism and Strategic Communication: Storytelling and Diversity,” (2nd Ed.) with Dr. Earnest Perry (Routledge/Taylor& Francis.) (1st edition, 2016, found here.)
Education
- Ph.D., Journalism, University of Missouri
- M.S., Journalism, Grady College
- B.A., Speech, International Studies and Spanish Literature, Macalester College
Research Interests and Activities
Dr. Len-Ríos’ research focuses on inequalities in public relations and health communication. Together with colleagues and doctoral students, she has earned more than 9 Top Paper awards in national and international academic conferences across multiple areas – public relations, health and science communication, mass communication & society, popular culture and magazine research. Len-Ríos has collaborated on interdisciplinary grant work, including a Washington University/Missouri School of Journalism NIH Center for Excellence in Cancer Communication Research. She has also been lead PI on the LASER project through the MU Mizzou Advantage program. She is an affiliate of the MU Center for Children and Families Across Cultures as part of the LASER collaborative, which is dedicated to studying the well-being of U.S. Latino adolescents. In addition, she served as an inaugural board member of The Herschel S. Horowitz Center for Health Literacy in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland (2014-2016).
Dr. Len-Ríos was elected association-wide to serve a 3-year term starting in 2020-21 as a Board Member at Large for the International Communication Association (ICA), the leading international membership organization of communication researchers worldwide. She also serves as Co-Chair of ICA’s I.D.E.A. (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access) Standing Committee (formerly Task Force). Her service also extends to AEJMC (the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication), the largest association of educators in the field of journalism and mass communication. She is in her second term as an elected member of the Standing Committee on Research, which oversees all association-wide national research awards and research competitions. She is the incoming SCR chair for 2020-2021 and as such serves on the Board of Directors. She is also a member of Page Up of the Arthur W. Page Society, a membership organization of senior communicators.
Sought out for her research expertise, Dr. Len-Ríos is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Public Relations Review, the International Journal of Strategic Communication, and The Howard Journal of Communications. Previously, she served as a member and chair of the Publications Committee for AEJMC (2013-2016), which oversees the flagship journals of the association. She is a former head of the Communication Theory & Methodology Division of the AEJMC (2007-2008).
Abstract: Only one-third of adults 18 to 49 years old in the United States receive a recommended annual influenza vaccination. This study examined whether supplementing vaccine information statements (VIS) with an immersive virtual reality (VR), short video or electronic pamphlet story designed to convey the community immunity benefits of influenza vaccination would improve influenza vaccine […]
Read MoreAdditional author: Patricia Moy Abstract: This paper reports qualitative and quantitative data from a national online panel survey of Latinos (N=720) after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Participants reported in their closed-ended responses a level of distrust toward the news organizations that largely parallels national figures. In open-ended responses, Latinos cited cable news journalists most […]
Read MoreAdditional authors: Manu Bhandari & Kyung Jung Han Abstract: In 2013, U.S. television chef Paula Deen faced a public relations crisis following news reports of a court deposition in which she had admitted using a racial epithet in the past. To investigate questions related to her effectiveness at image repair on issues of race and study the […]
Read MoreTeaching Specialties
Dr. Len-Ríos has taught courses in cross-cultural journalism, public relations, public relations writing, public relations administration/management, strategic campaigns, master’s thesis seminar, quantitative methods, mass media seminar and doctoral seminar courses.
Experience
Before coming to UGA, Dr. Len-Ríos served 10 years as a faculty member at the Missouri School of Journalism on the strategic communication faculty, two years at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, and two years at Georgia Southern University. Her students have won first place in the Arthur W. Page Society Case Study Competition in Corporate Communication.
Awards and Fellowships
• Latino/Latin American Research Award, 3rd Place, granted by the AEJMC International Communication Division (ICD) and the AEJMC Minorities and Communication Division (MAC), Washington, D.C., 2018
• PRIME Research Award, 20th Annual Conference, International Public Relations Research Conference, 2017
• PRSA Health Academy/Quinnipiac University Paper Competition Winner, 2010
