About Aimée Knight

I am Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, an award-winning teacher, community-engaged writing scholar, and program builder. Trained in rhetoric and writing, I work across community writing, public humanities, design justice, and digital media to explore how universities and communities can build more reciprocal, long-term partnerships.

In 2010, I founded the Beautiful Social Research Collaborative to create a sustained model for community-engaged writing, design, and media. Over the past sixteen years, I have led more than 160 community-engaged writing projects with nonprofit organizations and community partners in Philadelphia, across the United States, and internationally. These collaborations have included work with Indigenous communities, people who are currently and formerly incarcerated, nonprofits, advocates, and grassroots organizations. Across these projects, my focus has remained on building reciprocal partnerships that draw on community knowledge, strengthen local capacity, and produce work communities can continue to use after a university partnership ends.

My scholarship grows directly from this long-term practice of community-engaged writing. I am the author of Community Is the Way: Engaged Writing and Designing for Transformative Change, which develops an equity-based approach to writing and designing with communities. That same approach shapes my teaching in community engagement, nonprofit communication, digital storytelling, and design justice. My teaching was recognized with Saint Joseph’s University’s 2025–2026 Faculty Merit Award for Teaching.

My work in digital humanities informs my approach to public-facing scholarship, multimodal writing, and community-based media. I have taught intensive courses at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) and served as a peer reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement Grants program.