Owen Hanley Lynch, Ph.D.
| Phone |
214-768-1755 |
Dr. Owen Hanley Lynch is an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor and an Associate Professor within the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. He serves as the Director of the Organizational Communications track within the Division of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs (CCPA) and directs the SMU-in-London Communication internship program. Beyond his roles in CCPA, Lynch is a Senior Research Fellow for the Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity within the Lyle School of Engineering.
Lynch's applied research focuses actively on critical societal issues in the City of Dallas, including health equity, fresh food access and restorative justice. Translating action research into practice, he is the co-founder and Executive Director of Restorative Farms, a Dallas-based nonprofit coalition dedicated to fostering economic development and community health. The organization provides healthy food options, employment opportunities, and specialized career training to underserved urban areas, with a primary focus on South Dallas and the Fair Park neighborhood.
In recognition of his impactful community work with Restorative Farms, the National Communication Association honored Lynch with the Everett Lee Hunt Award in 2026.
Grounded in a systems theorist perspective, Lynch's scholarly work is fundamentally applied and interdisciplinary. As a participatory action researcher, he collaborates extensively with community-based partners—leveraging best practices, empirical research, and local grassroots knowledge to implement sustainable, research-backed solutions.
His research agenda seeks to understand the interconnected dynamics of human communication, organizational processes and stakeholder networks to address complex social issues. Specifically, his work examines how organizations and communities are continuously (re)produced through the everyday discourse and routine interactions of their members. Methodologically, Lynch specializes in qualitative approaches, emphasizing participatory action research and asset-based community development, which mobilizes existing neighborhood resources to solve contemporary structural problems.
Education
| Ph.D. in Organizational Communication, Texas A&M University | |
| M.A. in Organizational Communication, Texas A&M University | |
| B.A. in Communication, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill |
Recent Work
Research
His research interests include how organizations and communities are (re)produced through everyday discourse and routines of its members. His research methods focus on qualitative methodology, specifically participatory action research methods and asset-based community development, which utilizes existing local assets to address current problems.
Dr. Lynch has mentored numerous undergraduate research projects. In the past five years, over 40 research papers have been competitively selected and presented at regional and national conferences by his students.
His own research has been published in competitive venues including Communication Theory, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Organizational Ethnography and Journal of Applied Communication Research. He is also a co-founder and organizer of the Texas Humor Research Conference.
Selected Publications
McKenzie, Alyce M., and Owen Hanley Lynch. Humor Us!: Preaching and the Power of the Comic Spirit. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2023.
Course list
| CCPA 2327 | Introduction to Communication Theory |
| CCPA 3365 | Organizational Communication |
| CCPA 4375 | Honors Thesis in Communication |
| CCPA 5304 | Advanced Organizational Communication |
| CCPA 5302 | Humor in Communication |
| CCPA 5304 | Globalization, Communication & Economics |
| CCPA 5305 | Applied Research in Organizations |
| CCPA 5306 | Advanced Qualitative Research Methods |
