Laura E. Davis is an associate professor of professional practice at the School of Journalism and the founder of Stylebot, a copy-editing chatbot used by newsrooms nationwide. Davis created Stylebot in her previous role as digital news director of USC Annenberg’s Media Center, where she built the digital arm of the student newsroom, led students in the creation of an award-winning Instagram show and newsletter, launched the newsroom’s first app, and spearheaded participation in nationwide research on trust in news. Her work on Stylebot earned her entry into the Viterbi Startup Garage’s Fall 2019 cohort.

Davis teaches classes on audience engagement and social media and mobile storytelling, and she created USC Annenberg’s first product development course. Prior to USC, Davis worked as a reporter for The Associated Press; a homepage, social media and politics editor at Yahoo News; the deputy mobile editor at the Los Angeles Times; and a mobile editor at BuzzFeed, where she was on the team that launched the award-winning BuzzFeed News app. Through the nature of her work, she has helped national newsrooms change their workflow, policies and culture in the face of disruption. She has been published in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed News, Nieman Lab and MediaShift, among others. She’s also a coach for the Trusting News project and a proud USC Annenberg graduate.

Awards and honors:

Second Place, App Category Best of Web Competition, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Third Place, Disrupt the News Challenge, BEA.
Webby Award, International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
First Place, 4th Annual J-School Hackathon, MediaShift.