Barbara Diggs-Brown has more than 30 years of communication experience, specializing in strategy development, social marketing, qualitative research, integrated communication, media relations, and communications planning and training. She’s a prominent national researcher on the development of effective social marketing and communication campaigns as tools to address social change issues, including education, race and health. Diggs-Brown has designed, conducted and reported qualitative research for a number of government, foundation and nonprofit clients.

As a communication counsel, she advises communication directors of large and small organizations on planning, staffing and training. Diggs-Brown has lectured and written on the topic of race in the media and is co-author of a critically acclaimed analysis of race relations in the U.S., “By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race,” published by Dutton.

She’s the author of the only style guide for public relations students and professionals, in its third edition with Wadsworth Publishing.

Her public affairs career in Washington has included roles as: director of public affairs, director of government and nonprofit liaison and presidential campaign press secretary. She’s associate professor emeritus and the founding executive director of the American University School of Communication Institute for Strategic Communication for Nonprofits.