Dana Coester

Dana Coester is a professor at the WVU College of Creative Arts and Media and creative director for the College’s Media Innovation Center.

Coester’s work has long focused on technology and community media with special interests in audience building and new economic models and digital infrastructure for sustaining local journalism. Her research and creative work have included experiments in immersive documentary storytelling, and she recently produced the film Raised by Wolves, a documentary on the risks to young people in social media and online gaming. Coester is currently conducting research on the platforms, processes and prevention of AI-mediated harms and the risks of moral injury to young people online.

Coester is a co-recipient of the 2021-22 WVU Benedum Distinguished Scholar in the humanities and the arts and is a member of the Poynter Institute Advisory Board, Civic Collaboratory of Citizens University, the Rural Youth Catalyst working group, among others. Coester earned her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.