Anne Marie Todd

Anne Marie Todd joined the Dean’s Office in June 2021. Prior to this position, she served as Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication Studies. She brings broad experience in curriculum and assessment to the role of Associate Dean, including service on the Board of General Studies (now GEAC), SJSU’s Strategic Planning Taskforce, a WASC Steering Committee, and as chair of the University Sustainability Board. A native of Atlanta, Anne Marie joined the SJSU faculty in 2002. 

Anne Marie’s teaching and research focus on environmental communication. She co-developed COMM/ENVS 168: an interdisciplinary course on Global Climate Change. Her published work explores environmental aesthetics and sense of place, as well as issues of sustainability education, community engagement and integrative learning. She has published more than 30 scholarly journal articles and book chapters, including research on climate literacy, gardening and food activism, and environmental messages in popular culture. A current trajectory of her work examines the way environmental rhetoric shapes our community history and sense of place. Her book, Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement (Routledge, 2013), received the Christine Oravec Environmental Communication Research Award from the National Communication Association in 2014. Her forthcoming book, Sense of Place in The Garden of the World: Environment and Community in the Santa Clara Valley, focuses on the agricultural history of Silicon Valley.

Anne Marie is a founding member of the International Environmental Communication Association, and serves on the advisory board of the Green Ninja Project.

Anne Marie received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Cultural Studies from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication in 2002. She is an SJSU Salzburg Fellow (2012) and University Scholar (2009). Anne Marie received the College of Social Sciences’ Teaching Excellence Award in 2013 and was named SJSU’s Outstanding Professor in 2015.