The Ohio State University School of Communication mourns the loss of Professor Emeritus of Communication and former department chair Brenda L. Dervin. Dervin was a well-recognized individual in the field of communication and information science and had a huge impact on the School of Communication.
Dervin received her Bachelor of Science in journalism and home economics and a minor in philosophy of religion from Cornell University in 1960. She followed with a Master of Arts and PhD in communication research from Michigan State University in 1971 and arrived at Ohio State in 1986.
Dervin developed her Sense-Making Theory and Methodology, a philosophy-derived approach for studying communication as communication.
Dervin published 124 journal articles and book chapters, co-edited 23 books and served as an editor of Progress in Communication Sciences for the first 14 years of its publication. Dervin’s methodology has been used by researchers in library and information sciences, with more than 17,000 citations to her work.
Dervin was elected a Fellow of the International Communication Association and served as its first female president from 1985 to 1987. She received a Joan H. Huber fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State in 2004 and the American Society for Information Science and Technology’s top award for outstanding contribution to information behavior research in 2006.
As an international leader in communication and information science, Dervin continues to inspire her students and other professionals across the world today.
For more information, visit In Memoriam: Remembering Professor Brenda L. Dervin.
