Dr. Atkinson is an Associate Professor in the School of Advertising & PR in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research looks at communication in the context of sustainability and the environment. She focuses on the ways message components (like visual elements, argument frames, source factors) in environmental communication influence environmental attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Past and current projects have explored stakeholder acceptance of carbon capture and storage projects, investigated public hesitancy regarding new health technologies, and tested new communication technologies including augmented reality and virtual reality to communicate about poorly understood scientific phenomena like the Deep Seas.
She has been PI or co-PI on grants totaling more than $8M from government and industry sources. These grants support research exploring stakeholder communication around sustainability and climate change issues. Current grants include $7M (as co-PI) from the NSF to explore environmental justice and resilience in underserved communities and $100K (as PI) from the City of Austin to examine multilingual AI-assisted emergency preparedness among underserved communities.
She teaches classes on advertising history, environmental communication, integrated communication campaigns, and consumer psychology.
Dr. Atkinson completed her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her M.A. at New York University and her B.A. at McGill University. Before pursuing her doctorate, Dr. Atkinson worked for several years as a newspaper reporter and editor in New York.
Google Scholar
EXPERTISE: environmental communication; sustainability communication; climate change communication; Artificial Intelligence; virtual reality
PUBLISHED RESEARCH
- Journal of Advertising
- Health Communication
- Environmental Communication
- Science Communication
- New Media & Society
- Risk Analysis
- Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising
- International Journal of Consumer Studies
EDITORIAL BOARDS
- Environmental Communication
- Science Communication
MEDIA FEATURES
- National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition
- National Public Radio’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook
- Guardian (UK) newspaper
- CBC Radio, Ideas,
- Refinery 29
- Dallas Morning News
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
- Regents Outstanding Teacher Award (University of Texas System Board of Regents)
- Provost Teaching Fellow (University of Texas at Austin)
- Sharon L. Dunwoody Award (School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin – Madison)
