Dean, Anne Marie Todd

Anne Marie has had the honor and privilege of being the Dean of the College of Social Sciences (CoSS) at San José State  University since 2023. 

CoSS has been her academic home since she joined the Department of Communication Studies in 2002.

Anne Marie’s passion for teaching drew her to SJSU, where our students inspire and transform. Her teaching focuses on environmental communication, rhetoric, and popular culture. She has developed and taught more than 20 different courses at SJSU, including an interdisciplinary course on Global Climate Change, one of the first of its kind in the nation. Anne Marie received the College of Social Sciences’ Teaching Excellence Award in 2013 and was named SJSU’s Outstanding Professor in 2015.

Anne Marie's scholarship explores environmental aesthetics and sense of place, as well as issues of sustainability education, community engagement and integrative learning. Her work examines the way environmental rhetoric shapes our community history and sense of place. Her most recent book, Valley of Heart's Delight: Environment and Sense of Place in the Santa Clara Valley, focuses on the agricultural history of Silicon Valley. Her book, Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement received the Christine Oravec Environmental Communication Research Award. She has also published more than 30 scholarly journal articles and book chapters, including research on climate literacy, gardening and food activism, and environmental messages in popular culture. She was named an SJSU Salzburg Fellow and SJSU University Scholar. 

Prior to becoming Dean, Anne Marie served as Associate Dean for Academics in the College of Social Sciences, as Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at San José State, chair of the University Sustainability Board, and on numerous university strategic planning committees.

Anne Marie is a founding member of the International Environmental Communication Association and served on the advisory board of the Green Ninja Project.

Anne Marie received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Rhetoric and Cultural Studies from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in 2002. She received her B.A. in Philosophy from Emory University in 1998.