Donna Z. Davis joined the SOJC faculty in fall 2010 and has been based in Portland since 2011. After ten years as director of the Strategic Communication master's program, she founded and directs the Immersive Media Communication master’s program and founded and now co-directs the Oregon Reality (OR) lab at the SOJC-Portland. Before life in academia, she worked for more than 25 years experience in public relations, fundraising, and nonprofit communication, bringing that combination of research and practice  to the classroom.

Davis earned her Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Florida, where she studied relationship formation in 3D immersive virtual environments. Her ethnographic research continues to focus on the potential uses of XR technologies and the spatial web including immersive media, virtual worlds, artificial intelligence, gamification, and other emerging social media, with a special interest in marginalized and vulnerable populations. She worked for more than eight years with a virtual community of people with Parkinson's disease who find and build support as avatars in a virtual world, leading to research on embodied experience and identity among people with disabilities in virtual reality. This work was funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation. 

• PhD, Mass Communication, University of Florida
• MS, Family, Youth and Community Science, University of Florida
• BA, Journalism (Public Relations), University of Florida

Yue, C. A., Men, L. R., Davis, D. Z., Mitson, R., Zhou, A., & Al Rawi, A. (2024). Public Relations Meets Artificial Intelligence: Assessing Utilization and Outcomes. Journal of Public Relations Research, 36(6), 513–534. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2024.2400622

Yue, C.A., Men, L.R., Mitson, R., Davis, D.Z., Zhou, A. (2024). Artificial intelligence for internal communication: Strategies, challenges, and implications, Public Relations Review, Volume 50, Issue 5, 102515, ISSN 0363-8111, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2024.102515.

Davis D. and Alexanian, S. (2024). Role-playing recovery in social virtual worlds: Adult use of child avatars as PTSD therapy, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine Update, Volume 5, 2024, 100129, ISSN 2666-9900, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpbup.2023.100129.

Won, A. S., & Davis, D. Z. (2023). Your money or your data: Avatar embodiment options in the identity economy. Convergence (London, England). https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231200187

Davis, D. and Pimentel, D. (2022). Emerging technologies create new realities in strategic communication. Proceedings of the International Public Relations Research Conference, March 2022. Top paper award. https://www.iprrc.org/_files/ugd/27a53c_28884a316a394e5f86c180a2e1487ea6.pdf?index=true

Davis, D. (2022). Building a more robust qualitative methodology in the study of digital communities in virtual worlds: Revisiting the case study approach. Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, Vol. 17, (1):1-12. (https://articlegateway.com/index.php/JSIS)

Pimentel, D., Foxman, M., Davis, D., and Markowitz, D. (2021). Virtually real, but not quite there: Social and economic barriers to meeting VR’s true potential for well-being. Frontiers, Virtual Reality in Medicine. Front. Virtual Real., 17 February 2021, https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.627059

Davis, D. & Stanovsek, S. (2021). The machine as an extension of the body: When identity, immersion, and interactive design serve as both resource and limitation for the disabled. Human-Machine Communication, 2, 121-135. https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.2.6

Foxman, M., Markowitz, D. & Davis, D. (2021). Defining empathy: Conflicting discourses of virtual reality’s pro-social impact. New Media and Society 23(8):2167-2188. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444821993120

Pimentel, D., Foxman, M., Davis, D., and Markowitz, D. (2021). Virtually Real, but not quite there: Social and economic barriers to meeting VR’s true potential for mental health. Frontiers, Virtual Reality in Medicine. Front. Virtual Real., 17 February 2021, https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.627059

Davis, D. & Stanovsek, S. (2021). The Machine as an Extension of the Body: When Identity, Immersion and Interactive Design Serve as Both Resource and Limitation for the Disabled. Journal of Human-Machine Communication. Vol. 2, 7-21. https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.2.6 

Davis, D. & Chansiri, K. (2019). Digital identities - overcoming visual bias through virtual embodiment, Information, Communication & Society, 22:4, 491-505, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2018.1548631 

Davis, D. (2019). Social Virtual Reality – Understanding the power of virtual places and bodies for people with disabilities. In P. Ketelaar, J. Aarts, and S. Demir (Eds.) 30 Innovations in Digital Communication. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: BIS Publishers.

Donna Z. Davis & Derek Moscato (2018) The Philanthropic Avatar: An Analysis of Fundraising in Virtual Worlds Through the Lens of Social Capital, International Journal of Strategic Communication,12:3, 269-287, DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2018.1464007

Davis, D. (2018) “Our Digital Selves: What we learn about ability from avatars in virtual worlds” American Anthropological Association's Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC). http://blog.castac.org/category/series/disabling-technologies/

Davis, D. & Moscato, D. (2017). Reimagining health and disability through relationships in virtual worlds. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 28(4), 1-26.

Davis, D. & Boellstorff, T. (2016). Compulsive Creativity: Virtual Worlds, Disability, and Digital Capital, International Journal of Communication, 10(2016), 2096-2118. Available at http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/5099/1639.

Davis, D. & Yang, Y. (2015). Understanding digital media adoption: A content analysis of U.S. newspaper coverage of social networking sites and virtual worlds. Journal of New Communication Research, Vol. 6, Issue 1. 

Davis, D. (2014). Making a case for virtual healthcare communication: Mayo Clinic’s Integration of Virtual World Communities in Their Social Media Mix. Journal of Case Studies in Strategic Communication. Vol. 3, Article 7.

Davis, D. & Calitz, W. (2014). Finding virtual support: The evolution of healthcare support groups from offline to virtual worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. Vol. 7, No. 3.

Davis, D. (2014). Interviews with avatars: Navigating the nuances of communicating in virtual worlds. In P. Laufer (Ed.) Interviewing: The Oregon Method. University of Oregon Center for Journalism Innovation and Civic Engagement, Portland, Oregon.

Davis, D. (2013). A study of relationships in online virtual environments: Making a case for conducting semi-structured interviews with avatars and what we can learn about their human operators. In N. Sappleton (Ed.) Advancing Social and Business Research Methods with New Media Technologies. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Davis, D. (2013). Gendered performance in virtual environments. In C. Armstrong (Ed.)  Gender and Media Across Platforms and Cultures. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (under Rowman and Littlefield).

Davis studies emerging social media and the affordances of virtual reality that allow embodied interaction in social virtual environments. She is specifically interested in social consequences and media effects of embodied identity and the implications this may have on quality of life, in the way communities form, and on how information is shared. Her work also focuses on vulnerable and marginalized populations.

• 2018, Olga M. Haley Mentorship Award of Distinction, Public Relations Society of America- Oregon. 
• 2014, Inaugural Fellow, SOJC Agora Center for Journalism Innovation and Civic Engagement, “A Study of Gamification in a Social Virtual World To Engage Disabled Individuals in Support Communities.”
• 2007, Council on Contemporary Families National Media Award for Radio Coverage of America’s Families for Family Album Radio, University of Florida

Grants and Fellowships

• 2015-2018, National Science Foundation, “Collaborative Research: The Role of People with Disability in the Innovation of Online Technology.” $101,140 award. In collaboration with Tom Boellstorff at University of California, Irvine. Total grant: $378,040. Co-Principal Investigator.
• 2014-15, University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, Fighting Fund Grant recipient, $5,000 received for academic year 2014-2015.
• 2014, PI, 2014 SOJC Center for Journalism Innovation and Civic Engagement Fellowship, “A Study of Gamification in a Social Virtual World To Engage Disabled Individuals in Support Communities.” $28,000.63 award. 2014 summer fellowship.
• 2013-14, University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, Petrone Grant recipient, $5,000 received for academic year 2013-2014.
• 2013-14, University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, Fighting Fund Grant recipient, $5,000 received for academic year 2013-2014.
• 2012-13, University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication Fighting Fund Grant recipient, $5,000 received for academic year 2012-2013.

• Digital communities
• Gamification as strategic communication
• Health communication
• Media and disabilities
• Public relations
• Social/digital media and strategic communication
• Strategic communication
• Technology and media
• Virtual environments

• Mass Communication and Society
• Creativity in Strategic Communication
• Strategic Communication Research Methods
• Project Management and Planning
• Foundations in Strategic Communication
• Communication Ethics
• Immersive Media Marketing and Communication