Ann Searight Christiano

Ann Searight Christiano is the director of the Center for Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida. She was the inaugural Frank Karel Chair in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida, where she is a professor on the college’s public relations faculty. She developed the first-ever curriculum in public interest communications, connecting practitioners and scholars already working in the field and nurturing and sharing research to advance this newly emerging academic discipline. Public interest communications uses science-driven strategic communications and storytelling to advance positive social change.

The Center for Public Interest Communications provides research and strategic support to organizations worldwide on topics as diverse as vaccine confidence, making philanthropy more transparent, income support as a solution for poverty, health equity, disaster resilience and environmental sustainability.

With her co-author Angela Bradbery, she wrote the first-ever textbook on strategy for the discipline of public interest communications. Ann also directs the frank gathering, which brings hundreds of leaders worldwide working at the front lines of social causes and scholars and funders together in Gainesville to share the best of what they know. Before she came to the University of Florida in 2010, Ann was a senior communications officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where she directed communications efforts for programs that address the social factors like housing, education and mental health that drive health and well-being.

​Ann’s writing has appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Scientific American, JAMA, Barron’s, Fast Company and Quartz. She was the University of Florida Teacher of the Year and won university-wide awards for entrepreneurship and internationalization. Her work through the Center includes partnerships with the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, National Geographic, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations, the Manufacturing Institute and several federal agencies. She has also worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and nonprofits and foundations throughout the United States. She has trained thousands of scientists, humanitarians, senior military officials and other leaders to convey the importance of their work more effectively.