Elizabeth Suter
Professor
303-871-4492 (Office)
https://du.digication.com/esuter/home
Sturm Hall, 2000 East Asbury Avenue Denver, CO 80208
Specialization(s)
communication, family, Adoption
Professional Biography
Elizabeth A. Suter (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Affiliated Faculty in the Gender Women’s and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Denver. She identifies as a feminist, social-justice-oriented interpersonal and family communication scholar. She views the family as a politicized institution animated by the broader discursive, material, and political environment. Primary contexts of study include transracial, international adoption and lesbian co-motherhood. Recently she developed the Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication (CIFC) heuristic, calling for the centering of power, praxis, and reflexivity in contemporary studies of relationships and families. This work appears in The Journal of Family Communication, Communication Monographs, and Communication Theory. She lives with her partner and two daughters in Denver, Colorado.
Degree(s)
- Ph.D., Speech Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2001
- MA, Speech Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994
- BA, Speech Communication , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1991
Professional Affiliations
- National Communication Association
- National Council on Family Relations
Areas of Research
family communication
transracial adoption
international adoptions from China
family diversity
family identity
family names
interpersonal communication
relational communication
Featured Publications
Suter, E. (Ed.). (2027). Engaging theories in family communication: Multiple perspectives (3rd ed.). Su. Routledge.
Suter, E. (2027). Introduction: The landscape of paradigm and theory in family communication research. In E. Suter (Ed.), Engaging theories in family communication: Multiple perspectives (3rd ed.). (pp. 1–20). Routledge.
Suter, E. (2027). Relational dialectics theory: Critically examining talk within and about family. . In E. Suter (Ed.), Engaging theories in family communication: Multiple perspectives (3rd ed.). (pp. 291–303). Routledge.
Schoenbauer, K. V., & Suter, E. (2026). Women’s eating disorder origins as responses to childhood trauma and negative social self: A qualitative study exploring lived experience perspectives. . Journal of Eating Disorders, 14(1), Article 175.
Suter, E. (2025). Transforming the Paradigm of Aging: Community Engaged Learning and Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Pedagogy . In Critical interpersonal and family communication pedagogy: Charting new futurities (pp. 173–179). New York, NY, USA: Routledge.
