Christoph Mergerson

Dr. Christoph Mergerson, who completed his Ph.D. in communication, information and media at Rutgers University, joined the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in Fall 2021 as a visiting assistant professor. He was appointed to the rank of assistant professor in Fall 2022.

Mergerson’s research focuses around the practice and profession of broadcast meteorology, and the implications of rapidly changing weather media for the health of a democratic society. Through his Weather Media Research Project, he is investigating how weather media personalities build trust with their audiences, cope with factors that influence many different aspects of their well-being and reimagine the creation and distribution of weather-related content in a post-broadcast era. He also explores the profession through a historical lens by researching and comparing how newspapers covered women meteorologists and weather presenters in the period from World War II through the 1960s.

Mergerson teaches a course in journalism history for majors and non-majors, and an upper-level elective in ethical news coverage of diverse communities. He has previously taught courses in journalism law and ethics for journalism majors, and digital media law and ethics for non-majors. He has a secondary research interest in media ethics, especially pertaining to the legal and ethical implications of harassment involving emerging media technologies.

Prior to joining Merrill College, he was a telecommunications policy research assistant with the Brookings Institution in Washington, and a radio producer and public affairs manager for a disaster preparedness nonprofit agency in New Orleans. He was also a policy and planning intern with National Weather Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.