PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Jacqueline Lambiase, Ph.D., serves as department chair and professor in TCU’s Department of Strategic Communication in the Bob Schieffer College of Communication, and also directs the Certified Public Communicator Program® at TCU. She also chairs the program’s advisory board.
PROGRAM FACULTY
Lisa Albert, M.J.
Lisa Albert has experience in agency, nonprofit, higher education, and corporate strategic communication. After completing her undergraduate work at TCU, Albert began her career in Fort Worth, gaining experience with a local advertising agency, the YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth, and her own cheerleading school. After four years of business ownership, Albert returned to full-time work at TCU in the office of strategic communications. She worked her way up in the department and was named director in 2009, shortly after earning a master’s degree in strategic communications at TCU. In fall of 2014, Albert transitioned to a new role leading the communications team at Justin Brands, Inc., a Berkshire-Hathaway owned company. In spring 2017, Albert took a marketing director position with the Texas Ballet Theater, and in fall 2019, she joined TimelyMD as its associate vice president of marketing and client success.
Dr. Josh Bentley is an assistant professor who teaches law, writing, and a graduate foundations and theories course, among others, in the Department of Strategic Communication. His research focus includes these areas: public relations, law, crisis communication (especially related to organizational apologies), fundraising strategies and nonprofit media. His work has been published in the Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Public Relations Review, and several other journals. Before joining TCU, Dr. Bentley was an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, and his professional experience includes serving as a morning show host and production director at radio stations in Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
Dr. Ashley English serves as an assistant professor in the Department of Strategic Communication in the Schieffer College at TCU, where she teaches case studies, writing, social change and social responsibility, and a graduate projects course. Her research includes a focus on economic development and mega-churches, community engagement, and public-sector communication. As a strategic communication and nonprofit volunteer professional, she gained expertise in event planning and implementation, nonprofit and volunteer management, grant writing, youth development, nonprofit management, leadership development, community/relationship building. She is a founder and organizer of the TCU Nonprofit Communicators Conference, now in its 12th year.
Dr. Johny Garner is associate professor of communication studies and specializes in organizational communication. His primary research interests involve how employees and supervisors communicate with each other and how that communication can be improved. He also examines dissent, suggestions, and feedback in nonprofit organizations and churches. Dr. Garner is a member of the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association. He was recently awarded the 2009 B. Aubrey Fisher award for top article in the Western Journal of Communication. His research has also been published in Journal of Applied Communication Research, Management Communication Quarterly, and other academic journals.
Dr. Amiso M. George is an associate professor of strategic communication and former director of the strategic communication graduate program. She developed and taught the first course in crisis communication and was director of the public relations program at the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada in Reno. She also taught at the University of Texas San Antonio. George’s teaching, research and consulting interests include public relations, corporate communication and issues management, risk and crisis communication. George is Accredited in Public Relation (APR) and a PRSA Fellow. George spent part of summer 2012 as a Plank Public Relations Fellow in the Corporate Communications Department at USAA, a Fortune 500 financial services company, based in San Antonio, Texas, where she also conducted a workshop on crisis communication. In fall 2012, she was a visiting associate professor of strategic communication at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia, where she led tutorials on issues, risk and crisis communication. George has presented papers on public relations and crisis communication at national and international conferences and has published journal articles and book chapters in the same area. She is the co-editor of Case Studies in Crisis Communication: International Perspective on Hits and Misses(Routledge/Taylor Francis, 2012).
Stacy Landreth Grau, Ph.D.
Dr. Stacy Grau is a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation practice in the Neeley School of Business at TCU, as well as the director of TCU’s IdeaFactory. She’s also a partner in Dallas Social Venture Partners. Dr. Grau is passionate about using design thinking and creative problem-solving frameworks to tackle user-centered challenges and to develop unique innovations, particularly in education. She teaches creativity and innovation courses, as well as social entrepreneurship. Currently, she teaches design-thinking workshops for a variety of audiences at TCU and the community. Her research specialties include design thinking, digital and social media, social innovation, and creative problem-solving.
Glenn Griffin, Ph.D.
Dr. Glenn Griffin teaches courses in creativity and portfolio development at The University of Colorado in Boulder, CO. His research on creativity, education and social responsibility has appeared in the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Advertising Educationand Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, among other publications. In September 2010, his first book (with co-author Deborah Morrison), The Creative Process Illustrated: How Advertising’s Big Ideas Are Born (HOW Books) was published. His students’ work has been featured in both national and international press, including Advertising Age, Adweekand CMYKmagazines and recognized by The One Club for Art & Copy, the Art Directors Club of New York and the Clio Awards, among many other organizations. He is a frequent speaker at professional and academic conferences on the topics of creativity, advertising education and social responsibility.
Kathryn Holliday, Ph.D.
Dr. Kate Holliday is an architectural historian whose research and teaching focuses on the built environment in American cities. Her background is in architecture, art history, and environmental studies and she brings this interdisciplinary approach to the classroom and to her writing. Since joining UT Arlington in fall of 2007 she has published two books, Leopold Eidlitz: Architecture and Idealism in the Gilded Age(W. W. Norton, 2008) and Ralph Walker: Architect of the Century(Rizzoli, 2012). She has lectured widely on her work in public venues like the 92nd Street Y and the Skyscraper Museum in New York and the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, as well as at universities and academic conferences. She is currently at work on several projects, including an examination of the postwar boom in architecture in the suburban landscape of Dallas and Fort Worth in the 1960s and 1970s. Her current research on telephone buildings is featured in the new short film “Urban Giants: The Telecom Palaces of Ralph Walker,” which can be viewed on Vimeo. As Director of the David Dillon Center for Texas Architecture, she coordinates a yearly symposium each spring and directs student research projects documenting the history of urban growth in north Texas. The Center’s growing Oral History of Texas Architecture Project serves as a repository for the memory of the design profession in the region.
Dr. Jacque Lambiase is a professor and chair of the Department of Strategic Communication in the Bob Schieffer College of Communication, where she teaches campaigns, senior seminar, diversity, writing, research, ethics, case studies, and advocacy. For more than 15 years, she has consulted with or spoken to diverse groups about earning their share of discussion in social media and public relations opportunities, including TAMIO, 3CMA, NACIO, TSPRA, the Texas Municipal League, the Texas City Management Association, the Dallas Regional Chamber, communicators with the City of Austin, managers for the cities of Abilene and San Angelo, Children’s Medical Center-Dallas, the American Heart Association, Texas Instruments, and the U.S. Department of Labor. She is a co-founder and organizer of the DFW/TCU Nonprofit Communicators Conference, now in its 12th year. Her research focuses on public-sector communication, public relations ethics, social media, and representations of gender and sexuality in media and marketing. She has co-authored and co-edited two scholarly collections, as well as published more than 30 book chapters and refereed journal articles. Before her life as an academic, she served as spokeswoman for an East Coast electric utility and worked as a wire editor, business reporter and news editor for daily newspapers in Texas.
Sarah Maben, Ph.D.
Dr. Sarah Maben is an assistant professor in the Communication Studies Department at Tarleton State University, where she teaches graduate courses, media writing, and public relations. Her research agenda includes experiential learning in communication programs, public relations education, media ethics, and social media in the classroom. She is co-director for the Texas Social Media Research Institute (www.tarleton.edu/tsmri) and editor of The Journal of Social Media in Society(thejsms.org).
Dr. Wendy Macias serves as an associate professor of advertising in TCU’s Department of Strategic Communication, as well as associate dean in the Bob Schieffer College. She joined the strategic communications faculty in the fall of 2010 to teach social change, research methods, campaigns and channel planning. She also provides leadership for the college’s new interdisciplinary minor in health communication. From August 2000 through July 2010, she was an associate professor of advertising at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on health communications including direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising as well as how consumers use and interact with online communications. Dr. Macias’ refereed articles have been published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Health Communications, Health Communication, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertisingand Health Marketing Quarterly. She has presented her work at dozens of national conferences and served as a reviewer for several national journals of advertising, journalism and health communication. Before her life as an academic, Dr. Macias worked in sales promotion, market research and marketing. She continues to strive to bring industry experience into the classroom by collaborating with her advertising agency contacts.
Chris Naler, Col. USMC (Ret), M.O.S.
Since 2015, Chris Naler has taught leadership and case studies courses as an adjunct professor for undergraduate and graduate students in TCU’s Department of Strategic Communication and has shared leadership and management wisdom in the CPC program. He is a member of the faculty of the NATO School, where his focus is strategic communication and information operations for senior officials worldwide. He is currently the director of business development at BayFirst Solutions, a U.S. government contracting firm in Washington, D.C., leading its defense portfolio.
Dr. Julie O’Neil, professor in the Department of Strategic Communication and an associate dean of the Schieffer College, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in public relations, research and evaluation, and corporate social responsibility. In recent years, Dr. O’Neil and her students have assisted Roma Boots, Tarrant County Public Health, the American Heart Association, Justin Boots, and the American Cancer Society as her students apply what they are learning in class to contemporary scenarios. Her areas of expertise include measuring and evaluating communication programs and public relationships. She has published more than a dozen research articles in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Public Relations Research,Public Relations Review, Journal of Promotion Management, Public Relations Journal, and the Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, among others. In 2008, she and a public relations colleague won the first-ever Jackson-Sharpe Award for her research on the internal communication strategy of a global firm titled Measuring the Impact of Employee Communication. The Jackson-Sharpe award is given in recognition of the best scholarly research that bridges the gap between public relations scholarship and practice. Dr. O’Neil currently serves on the Measurement Commission of the Institute for Public Relations that exists to establish standards and methods for public relations research and measurement and to issue best-practices white papers. Dr. O’Neil is a member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Greater Fort Worth chapter of PRSA.
Tracey Rockett, Ph.D.
Dr. Tracey Rockett is an associate professor of professional practice in the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University. She currently teaches organizational management at the undergraduate and graduate levels and a strategic human resource management class for undergrads. Dr. Rockett was awarded the Core Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2013. She also has served as the Neeley Honors Faculty Associate Director. In this role, she is responsible for Neeley Fellows mentoring, implementing the FROG critical thinking model into Neeley Fellows courses, and chairing the Neeley Fellows Academic Leadership Committee. Previously, Dr. Rockett was on the faculty of the School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas. In that position she served as the founding Director of the OBHR (Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management) Program, the Director of the Management Honors Program and a SIFE Sam Walton Fellow. Her areas of specialization include organizational politics, online education, conflict, social networking, personal branding, women in the workplace, building relationships, and team development.
Jim Seeley serves as the emerging technologies manager for the Department of Journalism in the Bob Schieffer College of Communication, where he also teaches visual journalism. He provides media production and technical support to the students, faculty and staff. He is also responsible for maintaining the studio space and media equipment of the school. Before joining TCU, he helped create and launch a national cable network, Sportsman Channel, and served as its director of programming operations for the first eight and a half years of its existence. He also spent many years traveling across the country and around the world producing and editing outdoor television content.
Daxton R. “Chip” Stewart, Ph.D.
Dr. Chip Stewart is an attorney and journalist who joined the Schieffer College faculty in 2008. Dr. Stewart primarily teaches courses in law and ethics of mass communication, but he has also taught media writing and editing, public affairs reporting, and other courses. He has nearly 20 years of professional experience as a journalist, including stints as a city editor and columnist at the Columbia Missourianand editor-in-chief of Dispute Resolution Magazine. He has been licensed to practice law in both Texas and Missouri, working in both local government and general practice in central Texas from 1998 to 2000. Dr. Stewart’s research has focused on media law, most recently examining the challenges journalists and strategic communicators face when using social media. He edited Social Media and the Law: A Guidebook for Communication Students and Professionals (Routledge, 2012) and has published several articles on media law topics such as digital copyright, libel on Twitter, judicial contempt power in reporter confidentiality cases, and freedom of information laws. Dr. Stewart is a frequent speaker on media law topics to local and national organizations. He moderated and spoke on a panel at SXSW Interactive on Intellectual Property Issues in Social Media.