Photo by Leanora Benkato.
Amanda J. Crawford is a writer, journalist, professor, policy wonk, feminist, musician, traveler and gardener. In Fall 2018, she joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut.
Born in a small town in Western Maryland, Amanda was the first person in her family to go to college. After graduating with honors from the University of Maryland, she worked as a reporter for People Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, The Arizona Republic and Bloomberg News. She specialized in deep dives that showed the human impact of public policy, but has covered everything from mass murders to presidential campaigns and celebrities to immigration reform in her two decades as a journalist. Her journalism and nonfiction writing has appeared in a variety of other publications, including Businessweek, Phoenix Magazine, National Geographic, Ms. Magazine, High Times, Huffington Post, Hippocampus and Creative Nonfiction.
In 2010, Amanda was the first graduate of the mid-career masters program at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Arizona State University, where she served on faculty as a lecturer. From 2014 to 2018, she served as an assistant professor at Western Kentucky University's School of Journalism and Broadcasting, where she oversaw major student projects in upper-level reporting and writing classes that helped the school place first overall in the 2018 Hearst college journalism contests. She joined UCONN's faculty in the fall of 2018 as a tenure-track assistant professor of journalism in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.
Amanda's recent writing has included literary nonfiction/memoir and essays on important issues facing journalism and society. She is also a singer, songwriter and flutist who collaborates with her husband, Toby, in the Americana Gothic band Former Friends of Young Americans.
Born in a small town in Western Maryland, Amanda was the first person in her family to go to college. After graduating with honors from the University of Maryland, she worked as a reporter for People Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, The Arizona Republic and Bloomberg News. She specialized in deep dives that showed the human impact of public policy, but has covered everything from mass murders to presidential campaigns and celebrities to immigration reform in her two decades as a journalist. Her journalism and nonfiction writing has appeared in a variety of other publications, including Businessweek, Phoenix Magazine, National Geographic, Ms. Magazine, High Times, Huffington Post, Hippocampus and Creative Nonfiction.
In 2010, Amanda was the first graduate of the mid-career masters program at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Arizona State University, where she served on faculty as a lecturer. From 2014 to 2018, she served as an assistant professor at Western Kentucky University's School of Journalism and Broadcasting, where she oversaw major student projects in upper-level reporting and writing classes that helped the school place first overall in the 2018 Hearst college journalism contests. She joined UCONN's faculty in the fall of 2018 as a tenure-track assistant professor of journalism in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.
Amanda's recent writing has included literary nonfiction/memoir and essays on important issues facing journalism and society. She is also a singer, songwriter and flutist who collaborates with her husband, Toby, in the Americana Gothic band Former Friends of Young Americans.