Dr. Richards is the associate chair of the ETSU Department of Media & Communication and an assistant professor. She has been working in the research, analytics and account planning world for close to 20 years across a wide variety of industries. She has spent the majority of her career in Fortune 500 companies and major nonprofit organizations, in various marketing leadership roles. Richards enjoys helping organizations make smart and efficient decisions that focus on customer needs, preferences and behaviors, which in turn optimize business performance. She mentors her student teams to approach organizational questions with the same perspective. Her research focuses on brand communication (especially in the nonprofit and cause space), public health communication, and on the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is the co-author of the department's published experiential approach to teaching and student learning, the Applied Marketing & Media Education Norm.