Audra Diers-Lawson

Dr. Diers-Lawson is a global leader in issues and crisis communication research.

In her career of more than 20 years, Dr. Diers-Lawson has been a practitioner, researcher and instructor in strategic communication with an emphasis on crisis response and brand management. She is also the Chair of the Crisis Communication Division of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and editor for the first crisis and risk communication peer-reviewed journal -- the Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research.

As a practitioner, Dr Diers-Lawson has worked across industries like IT, health, agriculture and the public sector in multinational, national, regional and local contexts. However, Audra's passion lies in research and education. Her book, Crisis Communication: Managing Stakeholder Relationships(2020) has been adopted by practitioners and academics around the world. She is also collaborating with colleagues from around the world to better understand pandemic communication, and reduce hesitancy towards vaccination. And with projects being published on the role of Brexit, Covid-19, and hostile media coverage on the prospects of Scottish independence; long-term brand damage; and responding to security breaches, her research tackles both punctuated crises and long-term challenges. With work published in key books and respected journals, she is emerging as a key influencer in her field.

Current Teaching

Dr Diers-Lawson presently teaches on the Public Relations and Brand Communication (UG), MSc in Corporate Communication, and MBA programmes and lead modules in:

• Issues and Crisis Communication/PR
• Intercultural and International Communication

Research Interests

For the next few years, Dr. Diers-Lawson's research is focusing on:

• Reducing vaccine hesitancy. She is leading a project connecting colleagues from the UK, US, Mexico, Colombia and New Zealand to better communicate with people who are hesitant to be vaccinated or have their children vaccinate
• Exploring blame attribution, media coverage, and pandemic communication. She is involved with two separate projects. She is a Senior Mercator fellow with colleagues in Germany investigating communication surrounding Covid-19. Additionally, she is a part of a 20-nation study designed to understand blame attribution for Covid-19
• Developing research that addresses the employee experience in crisis. She is leading two separate projects designed to better understand leadership and employee engagement during crises
• Exploring crisis preparedness, social responsibility, and ethics in the grocery industry. She is leading two projects connected to these themes Together, her research is working to not only improve disease prevention but also understand the social, political, and economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, define what pandemic communication is, and the importance of developing better crisis resilience in organisations