LEAD Director

About the LEAD Director

The program is led by Dr. Athena du Pré, Distinguished University Professor. 

As director of LEAD, Dr. du Pré creates the curriculum, leads workshops, consults with leadership guests and mentors, and helps oversee the class project. She is a professor in the Department of Communication, where she directs the master’s degree program in Strategic Communication & Leadership and the graduate-level Health Communication Leadership certificate and teaches in the undergraduate Communication program and Leadership minor. She is the author of Communicating About Health: Current Issues and Perspectives (4th edition), which has been the best-selling text in its field for 15 years, and she is co-author of Understanding Human Communication (12th edition) and Essential Communication, in addition to numerous other books, book chapters, and journal articles.

Athena has worked as a consultant and leadership development coach with organizations in health care, finance, law enforcement, retail, aerospace and defense, and non profit sectors. She has supervised community-based projects with organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club, the Ronald McDonald House, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. She earned a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Oklahoma. Since joining the UWF faculty, she has twice been named Distinguished Teacher of the Year by the student body and was recently named Distinguished University Professor.