Owen Kulemeka
Owen Kulemeka, an assistant professor in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, died in his Norman, Oklahoma home on June 27 after being treated for a heat stroke earlier in the week. He was 38.
Owen Kulemeka’s academic specialty was public relations and crisis communication. In just four years at OU, he had become one of the most popular and admired professors on campus. In his first year, Owen won Gaylord College’s JayMac Outstanding Teacher award, the only new professor to have ever been selected for the college’s highest teaching honor. The following year, the Oklahoma Student-Athlete Advisory Committee selected Owen for the Most Inspiring Faculty award. In 2015, Owen was selected as one of the four inaugural Paul Risser Innovative Teaching Fellows, a program designed to help a select group of outstanding teachers on campus develop an innovative course.
Owen pursued scholarship in crisis management and was published in a variety of journals in that field. In 2009, Owen was selected as the first recipient of the James & Larissa Grunig Research Fellowship given by the Institute for Public Relations that provided him an opportunity to lecture and do research all over the world. Owen was active in international communication and had worked most recently with the University of Gujrat in Pakistan as part of a grant from the U.S. Department of State to upgrade the mass communication department at that university.
Owen Dekhani Kulemeka was born April 13, 1977, in Malosa, Malawi to Andrew Tilimbe Kulemeka and the late Sheila Dube. He immigrated to the United States in 1989 to join his father who was a doctoral student at Indiana University in Bloomington. Owen received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Maryland at College Park and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. While a student he interned at a variety of non-governmental organizations including UNICEF Indonesia, Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Before pursuing his doctorate, Owen had worked as a Research Analyst for Kearney and Company, a Public Affairs Writer for the American Insurance Association and a Research Analyst for Cassidy Government Relations, a subsidiary of Weber Shandwick Government Relations, all in Washington, D.C.
Owen is survived by his parents Drs. Andrew Kulemeka and Mary Ellen Scullen, two sisters Moyenda and Chikondi, all of College Park, Maryland and numerous relatives in the U.S. and Malawi. Owen also considered his students and colleagues at the University as his extended family.
Funeral Services will be held on Friday, July 10, 2015 at 11:00 a.m., at St. Camillus Catholic Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. A visitation will be held at the Francis J. Collins Funeral Home in Silver Spring on Thursday, July 9 from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Gaylord College will hold a memorial service on the OU campus early in the fall semester. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial gifts be made to the Owen Kulemeka Memorial Scholarship fund in Gaylord College at the University of Oklahoma. Checks should be made payable to the University of Oklahoma Foundation, P.O. Box 258856, Oklahoma City, OK 73125-8856. Remembrance comments can be posted at the “Remembering Owen Kulemeka” public Facebook page.
Please Click Here to View and Sign Online Guestbook
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTO AND VIDEOS OF OWEN
View Full Notice → KULEMEKA, Owen