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Dr. Melony Shemberger is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Kentucky University, with a double major in mass communication and history and government. She also earned a master’s in mass communication from Murray State University; a master’s in management from Austin Peay State University; and a doctorate in administration and supervision, with a concentration in higher education, from Tennessee State University.

Dr. Shemberger has published in several peer-reviewed publications, including Journalism History, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator and the Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication Journal. She also has several book chapters published and professional articles in guidebooks published by the PR News Press and has presented at several academic and professional conferences.

Most recently, Dr. Shemberger was selected for the Wiki Scholars Program to edit and write Wikipedia entries pertaining to women’s suffrage. In 2017, she was a Scripps Howard Academic Leadership Academy Fellow at Louisiana State University. In 2014, she was named a Business Journalism Professors Seminar Fellow. One of 14 faculty members from across the nation, she completed the fellowship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. At Murray State, she was a Provost Faculty Teaching Fellow, Interim Director of the Faculty Development Center in 2016 and an adjunct faculty member in the College of Education and Human Services in 2012-13. Since Summer 2017, she has taught in the Governor’s Scholars Program, a five-week camp for top high school seniors in Kentucky. She is also a Level 1 Google Educator, and since 2014 has served as an at-large representative on the Murray State Faculty Senate and was Vice President in 2016-17.

Dr. Shemberger is a lifetime member of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the top academic interdisciplinary honor society in the nation and on campus, where she serves as Chapter President. In addition, she was a Director from 2016-18 on the Society’s national Board and was Chair of the Advisory Council for Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum magazine. Honor society memberships also include the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, Omicron Delta Kappa leadership honor society and others. She is a member of the American Journalism Historians Association, the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Education Writers Association.

In April 2019, Shemberger was elected by her peers for the faculty seat on the Murray State University Board of Regents. She will serve a three-year term, which expires in 2022.