Jill Hopke

Jill Hopke is an Associate Professor of Journalism, focusing on climate journalism and emerging media. She researches climate change communication, climate journalism and extreme weather, as well as how climate change is talked about on social media. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in climate change communication and climate journalism, and social media journalism and introduction to mass communication. Hopke is a DePaul Humanities Center Faculty Fellow.

She started her career as a community radio news director. She went on to work in both print and digital platforms.

She completed her doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, along with her BA and MA degrees. While in graduate school she worked as a consultant in the UW-Madison DesignLab, a digital media lab and design consultancy service with the mission of improving students' digital communication skills.

She is a thought leader on the future of climate journalism and a contributing writer to Nieman Reports, a journalism industry publication from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Additional bylines in: The Conversation U.S., In These Times magazine, Ms. Magazine, and Yale Climate Connections. Her writing has been republished in GreenBiz, the International Business Times, Nieman Lab and Salon, along with numerous local publications around the country including the Chicago Sun-Times.

She publishes peer-reviewed scholarship in leading science communication and social media journals, including: Public Understanding of Science, Environmental Communication, Social Media + Society and Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. She is a founding member of the International Environmental Communication Association and regularly presents research at national and international conferences. Her latest peer-reviewed scholarship can be accessed via Google Scholar. She serves on the editorial board of a top-tier journal in the field, Environmental Communication.

Selected Media Mentions

• Adweek: Platforms Foment Climate Misinformation, Creating a Thorny Landscape for Brands
• Carbon Brief: Media response to 2022 IPCC report suggests shift to 'solutions-based reporting'
• Grist: Report: Nobody talks about 'global warming' anymore
• International Journalists' Network: ChatGPT for climate reporting: What journalists should keep in mind
• Nieman Reports: Why Climate Change Stories Need More Context
• NPR: Yeah, actually, your plastic coffee pod may not be great for the climate
• ReportEarth: What climate journalism means heading into a 1.5 C world
• Science Writing News Roundup: Science Writing News Roundup #239
• Skeptical Science: 2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #03
• WBEZ Chicago Public Media “Reset": Best practices for social media this election season
• Yale Climate Connections: Where to find training, fellowships, and classes on climate journalism
  

Professional Affiliations

• Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ)
• International Communication Association (ICA)
• International Environmental Communication Association (IECA)​