Larissa A. Grunig
Professor Emerita, Department of Communication, University of Maryland

Dr. Larissa A. Grunig, recently retired professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Maryland, College Park, taught public relations and communication research. The public relations graduate program at UMCP was ranked #1 in the nation in 1966 by U.S. News & World Report and in 2002 by a study done at Marquette University. Dr. Grunig received her doctorate in public communication, also from UMCP, in 1985. She was on the faculty there since 1978. in 1996, she was named Outstanding Educator by the Public Relations Society of America.

Dr. Grunig’s research interests center on public relations, development communications, communication theory, gender issues, organizational response to activism, organizational power and structure, and scientific and technical writing. In 1995, she was elected to the Honor Roll of Women in Public Relations. In 1990 Survey of the Profession, conducted by pr reporter, she was one of seven educators nationwide named most often as a role model and mentor who has helped shape and share the body of knowledge in public relations. In 1999, she was named to the Hall of Fame of the National Capital Chapter of the PRSA. That same year, she was listed in PR weeks 100 most influential public relations people of the century and one of the country’s Top educators. In fall 2003, she was honored with the Alumni Achievement Award of North Dakota State University.

Dr. Grunig is the 1994 recipient of the Jackson, Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science prize, sponsored by the PRSA Foundation, for her public relations research. In 1998, Dr. Grunig received the Pathfinder Award for Excellence in research, sponsored by Institute for Public Relations Research and Education. She was founding co-editor of the journal of Public Relations Research and has written well over 200 articles book chapters, monographs, reviews, and conference papers on public relations, science writing, feminist theory, focus group methodology, communication theory, and research. She is lead author of the first book about women in public relations.

Dr. Grunig’s, formerly a reporter and editor of a community newspaper in Colorado, has served as a consultant in Public Relations, beginning in 1969, to such clients as United Technologies, Allstate, Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations, American Airlines, DynCorp, Powel Tate Public Affairs, Goddard Space Flight Center, the U.S Department of Energy, Ragan Communications, the National Rural Electrical Cooperative Association, the USDA Forest Service, Oregon’s Department of Forestry, Mobil oil, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is active in both of national Capital and Maryland chapters of the PRSA and was an origin board member of PRSA’s Body of knowledge project. She served as a member of an International grant team, sponsored by the IABC Research Foundation, investigating excellence in public relations. She has lectured to campus and professional audiences in South Africa, Slovenia, Spain, Italy, Canada, Denmark, Bermuda, Brazil, Scotland, England, Egypt, Germany, Finland, Austria, the Bahamas, Mexico, New Zealand, China, Ireland, Croatia, Taiwan, Chile, South Korea, the Netherlands, Iran, Poland, Peru, and Russia as well as the United States. She was the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s 1996 Visiting Eminent Practitioner, and is Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor at McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Grunig is former president of the Association for the Advancement of Policy, Research and Development in the Third World and past head of the Educators’ Advisory Committee of the Institute, the Public Relations Interest Group of the International Communication Association, and the public relations Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She chaired the University of Maryland President’s Commission on Women’s Issues and served as Special Assistant to the president for women’s issues. She was UM’s representative to the Advisory Council of the Maryland Work –Life Alliance, founded by then-Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.