Barbara Ryan

Barbara Ryan is a Lecturer in Public Relations who started teaching and research with USQ in 2005. She came to the university after a career in journalism and public relations. In public relations, her field of teaching, she held positions as event organiser, media officer and marketing officer with schools, TAFE and an event consultancy before moving to Brisbane to work with Porter Novelli, the international public relations consultancy. From there she moved to Toowoomba City Council, where she spent three years managing the corporate communication branch.
Her work in local government gave her a taste for crisis and disaster communication and the strong link between effective handling of these situations and the reputation of the organisations involved.
In 2002, she was seconded under state disaster management arrangements to the local disaster management group to handle public information during bushfires at Toowoomba, and consequently is doing her PhD on how people get information when they are hit by a disaster.
She has also conducted a number of other studies relating to crisis and disaster communications.