Caption: Associate Professor Jenny Crowley at a networking reception during the 2025 National Communication Association’s Doctoral Honors Seminar in Knoxville.
The past year has been a whirlwind of career accolades and leadership opportunities for School of Communication Studies Associate Professor Jenny Crowley, who came to the College of Communication and Information in 2017 and achieved tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2023.
Her research around stigma has been recognized twice in the past year for being innovative and advancing the field of interpersonal communication. One of the most significant acknowledgements of her research was when she was given the National Communication Association’s Early Career Award in the Interpersonal Division at the organization’s 2024 conference.
“I was really choked up when I got the email, honestly, more surprised than I thought. Because it’s such a big division, it’s a real honor to win it. You don’t really know how your work is reaching people, even within the small scholarly community, or if people are appreciating or valuing your work,” she said. “ I thought, ‘Wow, other scholars are seeing the value in what I do.’ It was a really happy, impactful moment.”
It’s no surprise to those who have worked with Crowley that her scholarship is being recognized for its quality, quantity, and the types of journals that publish her work. Her mentor and doctoral advisor, Professor Andrew High at Pennsylvania State University, said Crowley’s success is well-deserved.
“On top of being a model collaborator, her work is rich, rigorous, and capable of producing tangible benefits for society. She is effectively building a programmatic body of research that can help us understand how people cope with a variety of social stigmas—research that is profoundly relevant today. If you have extra time this weekend, I’d read an article or three that Jenny wrote,” High said.
Following on the heels of that award, Crowley received a similar recognition at a regional level with the Outstanding Scholar Award from the Communication Theory Division at the Southern States Communication Association.
Crowley has not just built her scholarship on existing research but has created an entirely new framework that acts as a lens for other researchers to utilize as they conduct their own research around the way people share information around stigmatized topics. It is such innovation that makes her, and her work, stand out.
“Dr. Crowley’s research is important because it is done well and offers new insights on how people manage stigma. This combination of newsworthiness and methodological rigor makes it particularly valuable. And that expertise benefits our graduate students through her work with them,” said School of Communication Studies Director Jon Hess.
Her dedication to the field doesn’t stop at research, either. Crowley is drawn to mentoring graduate students as she deeply values the guidance High and other mentors gave her as a graduate student. She seeks to pay their efforts forward by being a leader and mentor at the College of Communication and Information (CCI) and at organizations such as NCA. This summer, she organized the highly regarded NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar hosted by CCI, providing an opportunity for PhD students and scholars from around the country to network, brainstorm, and build research plans together. She is responsible for creating and submitting the proposal that brought the seminar to CCI in 2025, and she also landed the opportunity for the college to host it again in 2027. Such efforts elevate the field of communication as well as CCI’s graduate programs, making it a worthwhile endeavor, Crowley said.
In addition to leading that undertaking, in 2024 Crowley stepped into the role of vice chair-elect of the Interpersonal Communication Division at NCA—which is one of the national organization’s largest divisions. She will transition into the vice chair role at the NCA conference in November this year, then serve as chair for the division starting in fall 2026. These roles require her to work with committee leadership to do various tasks depending on which role she is in, such as coordinating awards processes, collecting submitted papers, ensuring papers are reviewed properly, and putting together a program for the division at the annual conference.
Though these responsibilities add a lot to the associate professor’s plate, she believes being of service enhances her understanding of the study of interpersonal communication and provides her with an opportunity to grow her leadership skills.
“This synergy around being recognized for my work and then starting in a leadership position, I think these two things together will help me be seen as a true leader in this area. I’m also really excited to give back,” she said.
While she continues to teach, research, and serve in leadership positions, Crowley has also engaged in other opportunities to excel as an academic leader and scholar, including:
- Speaking at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s (UT) Brain Awareness Week in March 2025, presenting her research: Stigma surrounding addiction and impact on interpersonal relationships.
- Participating in UT’s Expanding Horizons Program for Emerging Research Leaders in the 2025-2026 cohort
- Participating in UT’s Leadership Acceleration and Development for Rising Stars in the 2024-2025