The Junior League inspires Alex Rister to develop her personal civic leadership potential and empower other women to create meaningful community change together on issues they care about. The first step, she believes, is prioritizing education and training on community issues. The importance of education for Alex is clear: her involvement as Chair of the Junior League of Greater Orlando (JLGO)’s inaugural Human Trafficking Awareness Committee motivated her to incorporate human trafficking awareness research into her Ph.D. program on communication and social change.
For over a decade, Alex has lent her expertise to The Junior League a variety of roles, including Chair of JLGO’s Issue-Based Community Impact Committee, Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President, Vice President of Training and Development, Vice President of Marking and Communications, and now as President of JLGO. During her presidency, she established and is Co-Chair of her League’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.
As Chair of JLGO’s Human Trafficking Awareness Committee, Alex collaborated with a team of Junior League members from multiple cities on the first human trafficking Coast to Coast social media awareness campaign, which featured prominent community leaders. Insights from the campaign were shared with attendees of the 2021 International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference. She has also served The Association of Junior Leagues International (AJLI) as a Member of the Regional Meetings Task Force and the New Member Task Force, where she collaborated with leaders from Leagues across the Association to develop best practices and engaging resources for training new members.
In her community work beyond The Junior League, Alex sits on the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Task Force and is an Emerging Leader with the Heart of Florida United Way. She is also Secretary for the Activism and Social Justice Division of the National Communication Association. Alex is a member of the Global Association for Human Trafficking Scholars, has been awarded the Francis Bok Human Trafficking Awareness Fellowship at the University of Central Florida, and has received two awards for her outstanding faculty work at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
An Assistant Professor of Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Alex is also the Associate Chair for the Department of Humanities and Communication, the Program Chair for the Bachelor of Science in Communication degree, and is Co-Director for the VECTOR Virtual Communication Center.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Florida, her Master of Arts in English from the University of North Florida, and her Master of Arts in Communication from the University of Central Florida. Alex recently completed her Ph.D. in Texts and Technology from the University of Central Florida.
