Joy Mayer is an engagement strategist whose work focuses on the continually evolving notion of audience engagement in journalism — how communicators can foster two-way conversations, collaborate with their communities and know who they’re serving and how well they’re doing it.

After being a 2010-2011 RJI Fellow, Mayer continues to serve as a consulting fellow and is currently working on a project to help journalists build trust with news audiences. Mayer launched TrustingNews.org as part of that project.

Before becoming a full-time engagement strategist, Mayer spent 12 years as an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she created an engagement curriculum and a community outreach team in the Columbia Missourian newsroom and also taught web and print design.

She held a 2010-2011 fellowship at RJI, during which she did a survey of 500 newspaper editors’ views on engagement, held a seminar on measuring the success of engagement efforts, and published a discussion guide for community engagement.