Gainesville, Fla, April 26, 2016 — Michail Vafeiadis, a Ph.D. candidate at Pennsylvania State University’s College of Communications, has won the prestigious 2016 Don Bartholomew Award for Excellence in Public Relations Research.

Sponsored by the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) and Ketchum Global Research & Analytics, the program selects a top graduate student in public relations, communications or business to intern at Ketchum’s New York City offices for a hands-on work experience in public relations research.

Prior to his time at Penn State, Vafeiadis held multiple public relations positions in Europe. Vafeiadis’ past research has focused on construction of social media-based strategic messaging, crisis communication, and health communication in public relations and advertising.

michail“I am really grateful to Ketchum and IPR for this amazing opportunity. Ketchum is the best place to put into practice the experiences I have accumulated during my studies at Penn State and work in Europe and to learn from a top public relations firm that does cutting-edge research,” said Vafeiadis. “I am very excited and I look forward to working with the Ketchum Global Research & Analytics team.”

Vafeiadis’ work has been presented at the International Public Relations Research Conference and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

The award, which was renamed last year in memory of Don Bartholomew, recognizes Bartholomew’s leadership in the field of public relations and his passion for teaching the practice to others.

Ketchum Global Research and Analytics (KGRA) is an award-winning, global team and the largest research, planning and analytics group in the PR industry. KGRA is committed to using innovative quantitative and qualitative research, along with digital, social and predictive analytics, in all phases of brand marketing, corporate reputation and employee engagement.

The Institute for Public Relations is an independent foundation dedicated to the science beneath the art of public relations™ and focused on research that is applicable in communications practice. Its research is available free at instituteforpr.org and provides the basis for the organization’s professional conferences and events.

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For more information:
Jenn Moyer
Institute for Public Relations
jenn@instituteforpr.org
352-392-0280

Heidy Modarelli handles Growth & Marketing for IPR. She has previously written for Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, The Next Web, and VentureBeat.
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