Matt Sheehan

Managing Director - Center for Public Interest Communications
Senior Lecturer - Department of Journalism

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Matt Sheehan, a journalist who has spent his career working in established and emerging media helping organizations make strategic shifts in digital, is a member of the journalism faculty at the University of Florida. He serves as managing director of the Center for Public Interest Communications.

During his tenure at UF, he served as the inaugural director of the College’s Innovation News Center (2013-16), he led the integration of three separate broadcast newsrooms into one, built out the digital properties, integrated JOU student immersion opportunities and served as news director for the University’s seven media properties, including the NPR, PBS and ESPN affiliates. During that time, student journalists were honored with 185 national and regional awards, with 40 percent of those competitions resulting in students winning over professional journalists. He also ran an experimental media content and product incubator named HATCH.

Sheehan joined the college in 2011 as director of the 21st Century News Laboratory, shifting from the media startup world where he served as chief operating officer for a digital-first media company based in D.C. Previously he served as an assistant news editor at The Washington Post and various roles at other east coast U.S. newspapers.

Sheehan served as an adjunct professor in visual journalism at the University of Maryland while working at the Post. He taught graphics and news design to students at the college, high school and post-graduate level, including as an instructor for the American Society of Newspaper Editors High School Journalism Institute, the Maryland-District of Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the Washington Post’s Young Journalists Development Program. He served as a senior administrator at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at Maryland while earning his MBA.

As managing director of the Center for Public Interest Communications, he is responsible for operations of the Center, an entrepreneurial auxiliary business unit of UF and the College. With his colleagues, he provides strategic advice and training using insights from behavioral, cognitive and social sciences to help partners using strategic communication for the greater good.

Areas of Expertise

Audience/Consumer Insights, Media Management and Economics, Multimedia Journalism, Public Interest Communications, Trust

Education

MBA, University of Maryland, 2008
BA, Journalism, University of Maryland, 2002

News

• UFCJC Student Project, “The Price of Plenty,” Wins 2024 SEJ Award for Outstanding Student Reporting on the Environment (October 23, 2024)
• UFCJC Student Project WATERSHED Wins 2023 Online Journalism Award (August 18, 2023)
• Center for Public Interest Communications Receives Anthem Award for Storytelling Guide Collaboration (February 22, 2023)
• The Center for Public Interest Communications Collaborates on Project to Study Inclusive Coverage of Immigrant Communities (November 9, 2022)
• Center for Public Interest Communications to Offer Communication Strategy Sessions for Social Change Organizations (December 1, 2021)
• All News About Matt Sheehan

Courses