Professor Emerita
Catherine Foster, PhD, is a long-time practitioner of public relations, now teaching the field to the next generation. She holds a doctorate in Organization and Management from Capella University, Minneapolis, Minn.; an MBA in Organization and Leadership from Lewis University, Romeoville, Ill.; and a master of science in Communications and a bachelor’s in Journalism from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She was also one of the first recipients of a Vannevar Bush Fellowship in Technology and Science Journalism (now known as the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Foster was manager of media relations at Argonne National Laboratory for 16 years, and also worked as science editor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was science writer for The Oak Ridger in Tennessee.
Her research interests center on audiences and messages, with a particular focus on emergency and risk communication.
Personal interests include theatre, movies, and mystery novels.