Dee Harris

Director of Communications and Engagement

Dee Harris is a global advocacy strategist and communications leader who has spent her career working in spaces where strategy and story meet, making the case that when they’re aligned, communications become the engine of change. At Creative Commons, she serves as Director of Communications and Engagement, bringing decades of experience in marketing communications, creative production, and advocacy. She has also led the organization’s work as Director of Open Culture Storytelling, championing international dialogue toward a UNESCO framework for equitable access to public domain heritage in the digital environment.

Before her current work at CC, Dee led strategic communications, public engagement, creative content and multimedia services as Chief Marketing Communications Officer for Family & Children’s Services. She shaped the organization’s messaging across 72 programs, led crisis communications, and strengthened community outreach, deepening connections between the public and critical mental health and social services.

Beyond her leadership in marketing communications, Dee is a versatile creator whose work spans education, technology, the arts, and nonprofit industries. An author, illustrator, graphic designer, animator, and videographer, she is an active member and juror for The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts. Her work has been internationally recognized with the Communicator Award of Excellence and the Clarion Award.

Her writing has appeared in Tulsa World and the Safety and Justice Challenge, a MacArthur Foundation initiative, covering media, culture, openness, and justice, and she has trained at the Intensive Journalistic Writing Institute at The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. She is also the illustrator of No One Is Too Old to Learn: A Theoretical Perspective on Adult Brain Functions and Adult Learning.

Earlier in her career, Dee was a secondary English and journalism educator, earning recognition as Oklahoma Scholastic Media’s Journalism Teacher of the Year and a nominee for the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Medal of Honor. She has served on national and local boards of the Association for Women in Communications and the advisory boards of the Journalism Education Association and Southern Interscholastic Press Association. Additionally, she contributed to the redevelopment of the Journalism Certification Examination for Educators and co-authored a curriculum guide for sports broadcasting and video journalism.

Guided by curiosity, creative expression, and strategic thinking, Dee enjoys reading, writing, painting, and digital media art. She and her husband live in Tulsa, where they hang out with a Corgi named Conley, cycle, and contribute both creatively and technically to regional film productions.

Posts by Dee Harris

Inside the CC Founders Fireside Chat

by Dee Harris Events

Twenty-five years ago, a small group of people made a bet. They believed that if you gave creators a simple set of tools and licenses in language that a lawyer, a machine, and a human could all read, millions of people might choose to share their work with the world instead of locking it down.
“We said, oh gosh, if a million people use these licenses, that would be amazing,” Hal Abelson recalled, laughing at how small that ambition sounds now. Today the number “starts with a B.” Hal’s quote was one of many memorable moments during Creative Commons’ Founders Fireside Chat, a special benefit event for CC’s 25th anniversary.

How can Equitable Access to Heritage Help Solve Global Challenges? An Exploratory Dialogue

by Brigitte Vézina, Dee Harris Open Culture, Open Heritage

How can equitable access to heritage help solve global challenges? That is the question we addressed during our Exploratory Dialogue, a major event we hosted on 29 April, 2026, at UNESCO House in Paris, France, to celebrate the Open Heritage Statement and explore its synergies with UNESCO’s priorities in tackling the most urgent problems facing the world today. 

Global Call to Action: Open Heritage Statement Now Open for Signature

by Brigitte Vézina, Dee Harris Open Culture, Open Heritage

Creative Commons and the TAROCH Coalition (Towards a Recommendation on Open Cultural Heritage) announce the launch of the Open Heritage Statement, now open for signature by governments, organizations, and institutions worldwide. Developed by more than 60 organizations across 25 countries within the Coalition, the Statement defines shared values, highlights key challenges, and sets action-oriented priorities for closing the global gap in equitable access to heritage in the public domain.