Who is Frank Karel?

As a leader who spent his 30-year career using communication for social change, and as vice president for communications for the Robert Wood Johnson and Rockefeller Foundations, Frank recognized the critical importance of strategic communication in taking on the world’s most important challenges.

His vision nurtured and grew our field. So frank refers not only to the candor and directness with which we approach our work but also to our affection for him.

As part of his vision to build the field of public interest communications, Frank and his wife, Betsy, endowed a chair in public interest communications at his beloved alma mater, the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. The chair is responsible for building a curriculum in public interest communications, mentoring and advising students who plan to build careers in the field, identifying connections with other fields, establishing community among those who work in public interest communications and building the community of scholars whose research will help to establish public interest communications as a discipline.