Dr. Eaddy is an assistant professor at Penn State University. Her passion for public relations has taken her from corporate communication to the classroom. Her passion for public relations has taken her from corporate communication to the classroom. The self-proclaimed “practitioner-scholar” understands the integral roles that public relations professionals and scholars play in the development, understanding, and growth of the profession. She is accredited in public relations (APR) and has spent time primarily in the healthcare industry and has been recognized in Dallas PRSA’s inaugural 40 Under 40 2021 honoree class.
Dr. Eaddy is a crisis history expert and investigates ways that crisis history can inform crisis communications scholarship and crisis communication strategy. Her goal is to conduct theoretically grounded research that will help professionals develop more effective crisis communication and reputation management strategies and sound measures to inform and evaluate those strategies. Dr. Eaddy’s research examines the ways organizations have handled previous crises and how that affects the public’s perceptions and emotions during current crises. She is also interested in health and risk communication research that can help communicators create effective strategies to relay pertinent information to the public. Dr. Eaddy’s Crisis History Framework provides insight into crisis
history salience by offering influential factors that impact stakeholders’ reliance on perceptions of organizations and their industry’s previous crises and how that affects their assessments of current crises. Dr. Eaddy also conducts historical research to explore parallels between historical crises and contemporary crises.
