Kelsey Whipple

Biography

Dr. Kelsey Whipple is a journalism scholar and former journalist who studies media portrayals of gender and sexuality and how journalists adapt to cultural and technological transformations. Her work has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism Studies, Digital Journalism and Feminist Media Studies, among other publications. Her research has been covered by industry sites including Nieman Journalism Lab and received Top Faculty Paper Awards from the Associational for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the International Communication Association. Most recently, she received the 2023 Gene Burd Award for Research in Urban Journalism Studies from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

In 2022, she received a Promising Professor Award from AEJMC’s Mass Communication & Society Division. At UMass, Whipple has been selected as a Lilly Fellow for Teaching Excellence, a Civic Engagement & Service-Learning Faculty Fellow, an Instructional Innovation Fellow, a TIDE (Teaching for Inclusiveness, Diversity, & Equity) Faculty Fellow and a STRIDE (Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence) Faculty Fellow. Whipple is also the faculty sponsor for the Journalism Department’s forthcoming student chapter of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.

Whipple received her Ph.D. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri, where she graduated Kappa Tau Alpha. Before returning to academia, Whipple worked for the alt-weekly newspaper company Voice Media Group, most recently as its Editorial Digital Director in Los Angeles. During her time at VMG, she oversaw audience development, social media, SEO, online publishing and other digital best practices for 11 alt-weeklies across the country. She has also worked for Westword magazine in Denver, where she wrote monthly long-form culture and entertainment cover stories before taking on a lead role in the paper’s digital strategy as a web editor. She loves animals, podcasts and music journalism and lives in Amherst with a friendly dog and a stubborn cat.