معرفی
Joanne Marras Tate ("Jo") is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also serves as a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and Instructor for Continuing Education. Her interdisciplinary background bridges marine biology, psychobiology, and communication studies, creating unique research at the intersection of environmental science and media.
Her educational background includes an Associate in Arts from Redlands Community College, dual BSc degrees in Biological Sciences and Psychobiology from Florida Atlantic University, an MSc in Media and Communication from Lynn University, and a PhD in Communication from the University of Colorado Boulder completed in 2023.
Dr. Tate's research centers on environmental communication and emerging humanature practices, investigating how humans relate to more-than-humans across different communities and cultural frameworks. She employs multimedia scholarship to explore interspecies communication, conservation practices, and visual representation of biodiversity. Her pioneering work on "Pandanization" examines how conservation messaging disproportionately focuses on charismatic species like pandas while neglecting biodiversity.
Her research portfolio shows consistent thematic development from her 2018 conference presentation on Pandanization through her 2019 NEST Fellowship field guide project to her 2023 dissertation on pandemic-era humanature relationships and current work on humpback dolphins in Australia. These projects collectively demonstrate her commitment to understanding and improving human relationships with non-human species through communication.
- NEST Fellowship (2019) for "Enhancing Biophilia Through Species Identification"
Dr. Tate actively contributes to campus sustainability through her service on the executive board of CU's Colorado Ocean Coalition and as a member of the Microplastic Working Group with the Inland Ocean Coalition. She facilitates science communication at Fiske Planetarium's Science Under the Dome program and serves as project manager and content creator for SciAll.org, demonstrating her commitment to translating academic research into public engagement.
