Nora C. Quebral

Who is Nora C. Quebral?

Nora Cruz Quebral is a pioneering figure in the discipline of Development Communication in Asia and is often referred to as the "Mother of Development Communication", giving birth not only to an academic discipline but to a new crop of scholars in the field as well. Among her students were internationally known devcom educators and practitioners such as Felix Librero, Pedro Bueno, Antonio Moran, Alexander Flor, Rex Navaro and Maria Celeste Cadiz. Her landmark 1971 paper entitled Development Communication in the Agricultural Context and her leadership of what was then the UP College of Agriculture's Department of Agricultural Communication, paved the way for academic programs in development communication at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. That institution later became the UPLB College of Development Communication, where Quebral still serves as Professor Emeritus.

In three separate terms spanning 17 years, from 1966 to 1985, Quebral served as the chairperson of the various earlier incarnations of what later became the CDC, where her colleagues have fondly come to refer to her by her initials, "NCQ".

She now mostly serves as a consultant, and founded the Nora C. Quebral Development Communication Centre, Inc., which "undertakes a wide variety of development communication projects in health communication, environmental communication and agricultural communication".