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Elderly man in a beige suit and brown tie with glasses, smiling softly against a warm, golden-brown background. Professional and approachable tone.

Dr. Don W. Stacks

Don W. Stacks, Ph.D. University of Florida (1978), is professor emeritus of strategic communication in the Public Relations Program in the School of Communication at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla.

Don has written more than 300 scholarly articles, chapters and papers. His awards include the Pathfinder Award; the University of Miami’s Provost’s Award for Outstanding Research and Theory and the Outstanding Graduate Advisor Award; the Public Relations Society of America named him Outstanding Educator and the Jackson Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science Prize; Outstanding Professor by University of Miami students. He also holds the 2014 Dorothy Bowles Public Service Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Don was elected as an Eastern Communication Association Distinguished Research Fellow and Distinguished Teaching Fellow and was inducted into the Institute for Public Relations first Research Fellows class. He has authored or coauthored over 20 books on communication topics, including the award-winning Primer of Public Relations Research (3 editions), the National Communication Association’s PRIDE award and was named the Measurement Standard’s “measurement tool” for 2003. Don edited and co-edited the 2002, 2006 and 2013 (w/Shannon A. Bowen) Dictionary of Public Relations Research and Measurement. He and co-author David Michaelson received a second PRIDE award for A Practitioner’s Guide to Public Relations Research, Measurement, and Evaluation in 2011. He was inducted into the PRNews Measurement Hall of Fame in 2012.

Don was awarded the Jack Felton Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Institute for Public Relations in 2017 and the Bridge Award for Excellence in Strategic Communication by the International Crisis & Risk Communication Conference. He was awarded the Arthur W. Page Society Distinguished Service Award in 2023 and has served with Donald K. Wright as series editor for Business Expert Press’ public relations collection with 20 titles currently published and several more under various stages of production. Don is the immediate past editor of Communication Research Reports and edited World Communication, Journal of Applied Communication Research and the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration.

Don has served on the Boards of the Institute for Public Relations, the Arthur W. Page Society, the International Public Relations Association, several international colleges and served for 27 years as the CEO/Executive Director of the International Public Relations Research Conference.