Qualifications 

Bachelor of International Communication (Honours) - Unitec Institute of Technology 

Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) – Arizona State University 

Dr Donna Henson is Assistant Professor in Communication in the School of Communication
& Media at Bond University, Australia. Donna teaches primarily in the areas of human
communication and research methods. Prior to joining Bond in 2010, Donna lectured at
Arizona State University, and more recently was a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director
for Postgraduate Programmes in Communication at Unitec in Auckland, New Zealand. 

Donna has presented research at a range of international conferences, including the
International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, the International Association for
Relationship Research, and the United States National Communication Association. In 2007
she received a top paper award from the ethnography division of the U.S. NCA
organisation. She has also published in a number of international journals, including
Qualitative Inquiry and the Western Journal of Communication. 

Donna’s areas of interest include narrative, autoethnography, meaning-making, relational
communication and the “dark side” of interpersonal experience. Her most recent work
examines meaning-making in the wake of natural disaster, with a particular focus on the
post-traumatic experience of direct and distant witnesses to the Queensland floods and
Christchurch earthquakes.

Articles

Aftershocks: Sense and nonsense making in a disorganized narrative, Qualitative inquiry (2011)

A disorganized narrative in both form and content, this article presents the storying and restorying...

 

Verbal rumination in close relationships, Communication Journal of New Zealand (2009)

This article introduces the concept of verbal rumination. The current study investigated the possibility that...

 

The effects of loneliness on relational maintenance behaviors: An attributional perspective (with Kristin C. Dybvig-Pawelko and Daneil J. Canary), Communication research reports (2004)

This study links the experience of loneliness to the use of relational maintenance behaviors. More...