Maria Elizabeth Grabe

Maria Elizabeth (Betsi) Grabe is the Dalton Family Professor of Communications and Director of the Division of Emerging Media Studies at Boston University's College of Communication since January 2024. Previously, she spent 27 years at Indiana University (IU), where she served as the first Associate Dean of The Media School (2015–2019) and was named a Provost Professor in 2022. Her research focuses on informed and misinformed citizenship, media effects, and visual framing in political communication.

Education includes a PhD in Mass Media and Communication from Temple University, and MA degrees in International Journalism (Baylor University) and Mass Communication (University of Johannesburg), alongside a BA in Communication and English from the University of Johannesburg. Born in South Africa, she worked as a television news producer during the 1980s State of Emergency.

Her key research explores how media modalities shape citizen engagement, with recent emphasis on navigating polluted information environments. Notable works include Image Bite Politics (Oxford UP, 2009), which won prestigious awards from the International Communication Association and National Communication Association. She chairs ICA's Journalism Studies Division and has been a Fellow of ICA since 2010.

Current projects investigate empathy in reporting on marginalized groups, African democratic satisfaction amid misinformation, and vaccine messaging efficacy on platforms like Black Twitter. Her work bridges empirical methods with societal impact, addressing urgent questions about media's role in democracy.

Grabe has advised multiple projects at IU's Observatory on Social Media (OsoMe) and served as editor of Communication Theory. Her grants include NIH-funded studies on health communication and NSF-funded visual politics research. Collaborative labs focus on computational media analysis and civic tech solutions for information security.