Glen Nowak and Hye Jin Yoon named Kennedy Professors

Grady College is proud to announce Glen Nowak and Hye Jin Yoon (MA ’06, PhD ’10) each have been named a Jim Kennedy Professor of New Media.

“Dr. Nowak and Dr. Yoon add real strength to our stellar lineup of endowed professors at Grady,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “They both exemplify the modern scholar/teacher, and will leverage their Kennedy professorship to benefits students in many ways.”

The professorships are supported by and named for James C. Kennedy, chairman emeritus and chairman of the James M. Cox Foundation. The gift to support these professorships was made in 2011 with an emphasis on new media to develop the next generation of communication professionals and engage in research and outreach to help the industry respond in a time of rapid change.

Bartosz Wojdynski and James Hamilton are also Jim Kennedy New Media Professors at Grady College.

Glen Nowak

Glen Nowak is the associate dean for research and graduate studies, co-director of the Center for Health & Risk Communication and a professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at Grady College.

Nowak is a prolific researcher specializing in areas of health, vaccine, and risk-related communication including interventions, campaigns, messaging and messages, news media and provider-patient communication. He was widely consulted and quoted in the media during COVID-19 about vaccine education, messaging and acceptance.

Nowak said there is demand for high-quality, helpful information on the benefits and risks of medicines, vaccines and health-related advice, and a lot of current research and teaching is centered on finding ways to improve that information.

“This professorship will help me stay current on the communication practices and media used in health communication and grow the visibility of Grady’s growing research and teaching in health communication and advertising,” Nowak said.

In 2022, Nowak and an interdisciplinary team of researchers from UGA were awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study if there are ways to forecast how people will respond to health advice and information during an infectious disease outbreak, particularly in a pandemic.

Nowak also participates in the College’s Crisis Communication Think Tank and co-edited a book on the subject, “Advancing Crisis Communication Effectiveness.”

Prior to rejoining the Grady faculty in January 2013, Nowak worked 14 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He spent six years as director of media relations at the CDC and six years as communications director for CDC’s National Immunization Program. He has experience in managing and implementing health and risk communications programs, media relations, health information campaigns and social marketing. Prior to joining CDC in January 1999, Nowak taught at Grady College for ten years.

Government and non-government public health agencies frequently seek out Nowak’s vast experience and in 2014, he assisted the Task Force for Global Health in its efforts to develop and implement a communication strategy for a worldwide effort related to polio eradication.  

Nowak earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Hye Jin Yoon

Hye Jin Yoon is a professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations.

Yoon’s research specializations include using humor and incongruity messaging at the intersections of health, environmentalism and sustainability. Her research also focuses on mindful consumption and brand activism on digital and interactive media applications such as pre-roll video ads, retargeting ads, social media and generative AI technology such as ChatGPT. She is one of two faculty mentors for the Health and Environmental Advertising Research Team at Grady College, a research group of Ph.D. students, junior scholars and Grady College faculty. She has published over 60 articles in peer-reviewed international journals. 

“Using attractive messaging strategies and two-way communication through new, digital, and interactive media is vital in engaging audiences in an overly cluttered media and advertising environment,” Yoon said. “This professorship will help me and the Grady research team to continue to test the next frontier of various new media in increasing the effectiveness of pro-social advertising in brand and social marketing communications.”

Yoon teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes including Media Activation & Strategy, Advertising & Communication Campaigns, and Research and Directed Readings in Mass Communication.

Yoon is active with the American Academy of Advertising, serving as Vice President in 2024. She is currently AAA President-Elect and will serve as President in 2026-27.

Yoon serves as guest editor for two journals, including the Journal of Interactive Advertising: Brand Activism on Digital and Interactive Media and the International Journal of Advertising: Increasing the Effectiveness of Health Communication Advertising. She served as an associate editor for the International Journal of Advertising and is currently an associate editor for the Journal of Advertising.

Yoon earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in mass communication from Korea University, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Grady College.

Author: Sarah Freeman, freemans@uga.edu