Communication Professor Brooke Fisher Liu Named Distinguished Scholar-Teacher

Liu leads diverse research teams to theorize and test risk and crisis communication.

By Jessica Weiss ’05

From heat waves and wildfires to disease outbreaks and full blown pandemics, we are living in an age of increased crises. In fact, since 1980, disaster damage has increased nearly 350 percent worldwide.

Professor of Communication Brooke Fisher Liu has dedicated her career to understanding how optimized communication can make a tangible impact on people affected by large-scale disasters, with the ultimate goal to build communities that are resilient in the face of pandemics and other health crises, weather and environmental disasters or human-caused catastrophes like terrorist attacks. And “there are plenty of events to study,” Liu said. 

The University of Maryland recently recognized Liu with a 2024 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award, recognizing her combination of outstanding scholarly accomplishment with excellence in teaching. Earlier this summer, Liu was also elected a fellow of the International Communication Association for her distinguished scholarly contributions to the communication discipline and beyond, which she called a “great honor.” 

Liu leads diverse research teams—which often include graduate students—to theorize and test risk and crisis communication approaches, such as weather emergency cell phone warnings and alerts and social media messages. And she brings her real-life research experiences working with a variety of government organizations directly into the classroom; she has led or co-led research supported by more than $5 million in funding from the Centers for Disease Control, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation and the Food and Drug Administration. 

“I see my teaching, mentoring and research to be completely intertwined,” Liu said. “Events are constantly happening so I have the opportunity to bring the real world into the classroom, both past events and current. That’s fruitful for real time teaching examples as well as real time research to extend our knowledge.”   

Liu earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and Spanish from Washington University in St. Louis, a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She joined UMD in 2009. That year, the H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic saw U.S. federal agencies use social media to respond to a major crisis for the first time. Liu was among the first communication scholars to begin a new line of research to address the emergence and application of social media in crisis communication.  

She is the co-editor of the first “Handbook of Risk, Crisis, and Disaster Communication,” has written 20 book chapters and has published 73 articles in refereed journals. 

Over the last five years, Liu has taught five different courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has served as primary adviser to 12 Ph.D. students and three master’s students. She received the University of Maryland's Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year Award for 2022. She’s also been recognized with the Department of Communication Outstanding Teaching Award and the Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Faculty Mentor Award.

“Choosing to study with Dr. Liu has been the best professional decision of my life,” said Tyler G. Page Ph.D. ’18, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Connecticut. “She spends a very high proportion of her institutional power to help others navigate and succeed in the challenging academic ecosystem.”

Liu currently co-leads, with Cynthia Baur from the School of Public Health’s Horowitz Center for Health Literacy, the University of Maryland Pandemic Readiness Initiative, the winner of a Grand Challenges Impact Award. The initiative integrates a broad array of social and behavioral sciences to learn from COVID-19 and other disasters to better prepare for future public health emergencies. 

“Through integrating research, teaching and other educational experiences my students and I make the world a more resilient and inclusive place,” she said. 

On Friday, October 11, Liu will give a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Lecture titled “Panic, Perish or Prosper? The Essential Elements of Risk Communication for Crisis Readiness.” Learn more and attend.