Speakers

2019 Keynote Speaker

Professor Abby Koenig has been a lecturer in Communication Studies at the University of Houston-Downtown, where she has been teaching a variety of speech communication, media and digital communication courses for the past six years. Additionally, she serves as the committee chair for the department’s annual Arts and Communication Festival, she is a co-founder/producer of the Annual Communication Studies Public Speaking Competition, the social media faculty mentor for the UHDiRadio station, among sitting on various other committees and participating in student-centered events. In 2018 she was awarded the esteemed, Outstanding Lecturer of the Year award.

Prior to teaching she has worked extensively in the field of media and communication holding positions for several Public Broadcasting stations and large advertising firms. She was a regular contributor for the Houston Press and ran its popular "Art Attack" blog, in addition to publishing stories in several local and national magazines. She was a featured newscaster on Fox26s local blogger segment, and served as on-air talent on HoustonPBS. She is also a playwright, with works published in Houston, New York and Denver.

She obtained her undergraduate degree from SUNY Purchase in Dramatic Writing, her MA in Mass Communication from UH, and is currently completing her PhD in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University.