Allissa Richardson

Richardson holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Journalism Studies from the University of Maryland College Park. Her dissertation is titled, "Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism." Richardson explored the lives of 15 mobile journalist-activists who documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only their smartphones and Twitter.

Richardson earned a Master of Science in journalism with a concentration in Magazine Publishing, Writing and Editing from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Xavier University of Louisiana.

Richardson began her journalism career in 2002 as a general assignment intern for the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York, after winning a Freedom Forum scholarship.[3] In 2003, Johnson Publishing Company selected her as its inaugural intern for Jet magazine. She was promoted to assistant editor of Jet at the end of her internship. Richardson chronicled what she described as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience" of working alongside Jet's founder, John H. Johnson, in a personal essay titled "Farewell and Thank You to John H. Johnson", after he died in 2005. She wrote: "When Mr. Johnson died Aug. 8 at the age of 87, I was torn between feeling selfishly saddened by his departure and enormously grateful for the inroads he made in American journalism".[4] Richardson has reported on Capitol Hill as an assistant editor of food policy for Food Chemical News. She also has written on health, technology and culture for O, The Oprah Magazine, The Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune.

At 25, Richardson joined the faculty of Morgan State University. She served as coordinator of its journalism program, and launched and directed the Morgan MOJO Lab in 2010.[5] Students enrolled in her MOJO Lab classes learned to report news using only iPod Touch devices.[6] Morgan State University became the first and only historically black college in the country to offer mobile journalism courses.[7] Richardson accepted a professorship at Bowie State University in Fall 2012. She relocated the MOJO Lab to its campus. She was a mobile media professor in the Emerging Media and Technology division until 2017.[8] After earning her doctorate, Richardson joined the journalism faculty at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She holds a dual appointment in both the journalism and communication departments within the Annenberg School. She studies black feminist media, communication and social justice, mobile journalism, networked journalism, race and the media, and visual communication theory.

Richardson worked as a laboratory researcher for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration while studying biology at Xavier University of Louisiana. Her initial career goal was to become a clinical neonatologist who studied ways to decrease nosocomial infections in newborn babies. Her FDA research focus was antimicrobial resistance.[9] Richardson was accepted to the Howard University College of Medicine in 2002, but declined the offer to matriculate.[10] She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in biology, but decided to follow her passion for writing instead. She enrolled in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University that year and won its Weinstein-Luby Outstanding Young Journalist award.[11]