Phaedra C. Pezzullo

Phaedra C. Pezzullo (BS, BA, MA, PhD) is a professor in the Department of Communication in the College of Media, Communication, & Information at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA, as well as a Faculty Associate of Environmental Studies and a Faculty Affiliate of Ethnic Studies and Media Studies. She is an internationally known scholar with interdisciplinary expertise in the humanities and sciences, focusing primarily on environmental and climate justice studies, rhetorics of social movements, and environmental communication.

Pezzullo’s latest monograph is: Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care (University of California Press, 2023), which is based, in part, on her podcast, Communicating Care. Beyond Straw Men has been recognized with the following awards from the National Communication Association: the Tarla Rai Peterson top Book Award in Environmental Communication; the James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric/Public Address; and the Diamond Anniversary Book Award, which is the highest book award honor in the organization. An award-winning teacher at the undergraduate and graduate levels, Pezzullo has coauthored and/or (co)edited over a half dozen additional books, including four editions of the textbook Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere (Sage,  2016, 2018, 2021, 2025) and the highly regarded Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Travel, Pollution, and Environmental Justice (University of Alabama Press, 2007), which examines how communities use noncommercial tours to map counter-geographies and to raise awareness about the impacts of toxic pollution and environmental injustices more broadly. Perhaps most unexpectedly, an indie-rock song, Toxic Tour, was inspired by it (The Holland Dutch, 2008).

Pezzullo is a founding Director of the Sustainability and Storytelling Lab, launching in 2025. She also is serving as the Director of the CU Boulder Graduate Certificate in Environmental Justice.  For more on the centers she co-directs, go to her website.

Committed to public service, Pezzullo has consulted, trained, and worked with many organizations and partners, including the American Bar Association, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), University Cooperation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), The Pulitzer Center, the Sierra Club, and local government planning departments. She recently has been quoted in The Guardian, TIME, the Los Angeles Times, Open Canada, and CNN Travel. She also has given talks throughout the US and internationally, including at Fudan University (Shanghai), and the Grand amphithéâtre de la Sorbonne, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, France.