Dr. Carrie Brown heads the Newmark J-School’s M.A. in Engagement Journalism program.
She was previously an associate professor of journalism at the University of Memphis, where she earned recognition in 2014 as the national Educator of the Year from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Newspaper and Online Division.
A pioneer in changing journalism education, she has developed and taught new courses in social media and entrepreneurial journalism at Memphis and launched a new graduate certificate program in entrepreneurial journalism there in partnership with local accelerator Start.Co.
Dr. Brown’s research has focused primarily on how newsrooms can adapt to the rapidly evolving digital, mobile and economic climate, and has included extensive periods of observation at various news organizations. She is working on a book that will detail these findings with coauthor Jonathan Groves.
In 2013 she and Groves won the Top Paper Award at the ISOJ conference in Austin, Texas. Dr. Brown was recently invited to be part of a “select group of thought leaders” on American Press Institute’s Research Advisory Board, whose members meet and collaborate with top leading news organizations to shape practical research agendas.
Dr. Brown also has professional journalism experience, having worked as a reporter and/or editor for the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, CD Publications, and the Columbia Missourian. In addition, she traveled to more than 50 newspapers large and small across the United States as the manager of the Traveling Curriculum Program of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, helping newsroom leaders and staff find ways to preserve core values while adjusting to industry changes.
Dr. Brown received her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, where she studied with the director of the Center for the Study of Organizational Change. She received her MA in communication from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania and her BA in journalism and biological aspects of conservation from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, in the state where she was born and raised.
