For the Graduate Division's listing of Department of Communication's Graduate Alumni job placements overall, and by different periods since graduation, please see http://www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/documents/placement/COMM_Alumni_Job_Placement.pdf.

2017

Aubrie Adams

Kristin Hocevar

Lecturer in Public Health, University of California at Merced

Kristin Hocevar received her PhD and MA in Communication from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and her BA (magna cum laude) from Connecticut College. She has worked in television, documentary film, and web production for multiple Public Broadcasting Service stations and affiliated organizations, and has also worked in institutional advancement and strategic communication research for the United States Department of Defense. Her current research focuses on online health information sharing, selection, and evaluation, and the social and health implications of the interactions, communities, and pooled information facilitated by the Internet. Kristin teaches classes on the topics of persuasion/behavior change, health communication, health promotion, and digital media/communication technology.

Lauren Keblusek

Lauren is interested in the intersection of evolutionary theory and human communication, with a focus on indirect or social forms of aggression, including gossip. Her dissertation examines conditions under which the perceived juiciness and maliciousness of gossip--along with one's memory for gossip and their likelihood of sharing it with others--might be heightened or reduced. Lauren received a B.A. in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (with an emphasis in language and cognition) at Washington University in St. Louis and an M.A. in Communication from UCSB. She currently lives in Seattle, WA. 

 

Samantha Rae Powers

 

Assistant Professor, Strategic, Legal and Management Communication, Cathy Hughes School of Communications, Howard University

 

Samantha earned her B.S., M.A., and J.D. at University of Florida and is a licensed attorney in Florida, where she practiced employment law and consumer financial services litigation for seven years prior to her doctoral studies at UCSB.  Her scholarship is interdisciplinary, drawing upon research in organizational, health, and interpersonal communication, as well as organizational psychology and management.  Her research interests include occupational stress and well-being, work-related emotional communication, vocational and organizational socialization, and workplace discrimination in professional institutions and occupations, as well as gender differences in conflict transformation and negotiation.

 

DaJung "DJ" Woo

Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville 

DJ received her PhD in Communication from UCSB, MA from Kansas State University, and BA from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea. Broadly, DJ's research interests focus on how people from different groups and organizations can learn to work together successfully despite their differences. Her dissertation examined the ways in which organizations from diverse fields and sectors initiate, maintain, and end collaborative relationships through communication in regional planning processes. At The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she teaches courses in areas such as Communication Theory and Organizational Communication. 

2016

Kimberly Walsh McDermott

Research Leader, Truven Health Analytics, an IBM Company, Santa Barbara, CA

Kim received her PhD from UCSB (2016) and her MA from UMass Amherst (2012). Broadly, Kim's research interests surround children, adolescents, and the media. During her graduate school career, she studied representations of school bullying in entertainment and news media; implemented and evaluated K-12 media literacy interventions; and conducted experiments related to the effects of stereotypical media depictions. Her dissertation focused on television depictions of illicit drug use. Specifically, the study assessed the role of audience interpretations in predicting attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions related to cocaine. Now, as a health services researcher, Kim applies her background and experience to large-scale research studies for the Federal Government and State agencies.

Richard Huskey

Assistant Professor in the School of Communication, The Ohio State University

Richard's research lies at the intersection of media psychology and cognitive neuroscience with a particular focus on understanding how media content influence human cognition and behavior. This emerging research area is known as Media Neuroscience. As a media neuroscientist, Richard adopts a multi-level perspective that understands the mind (and the communication phenomena it enables) as a physical property of the brain. Accordingly, Richard's use of neuroscientific research techniques complements existing measures by providing an additional level of explanation for communication processing and behavior (e.g., sociocultural, individual, biological, chemical, physical). It is from this perspective that Richard's research investigates three core topics: motivation and media engagement, attitude and behavior change, and the influence of moral narratives.

2015

Marko Dragojevic

Assistant Professor of Communication, University of Kentucky

Marko Dragojevic is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky. He studies language and interpersonal/intergroup communication. In particular, his research focuses on the communicative significance of linguistic variation – that is, differences in language use, including the use of different accents, dialects, and languages. His research tries to answer three broad questions: (1) How do we evaluate different language varieties and the speakers who use them? (2) How do those evaluations influence our own and others’ communicative behavior? (3) What are the cognitive and affective processes underlying those effects? He pursues these questions in three related lines of research: language attitudes, linguistic accommodation, and linguistic framing in persuasion.

2014

Theresa de los Santos

Assistant Professor of Communication, Pepperdine University

Theresa is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Pepperdine University in Malibu. Her research interests focus on news effects and emotion. Theresa's dissertation examined how discrete emotions (anger, hope, and fear) influence the selection, processing, and sharing of online news information.

Ryan Fuller

Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas, Little Rock

Ryan Fuller is Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. His research interests focus on conflict framing, negotiations, labor unions, and organizational communication.  His doctoral dissertation centered on how entertainment unions frame changes in a disruptive and conflict-ridden industry. He teaches conflict management at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and organizational communication at the graduate level.

Lisa Leombruni

Development Associate, NOVA / WGBH Educational Foundation; Program Manager, UCSB Bren School of Environmental Science & Management

Lisa works in the NOVA Science Unit to help develop ideas and raise money for new science television programs for PBS; she also oversees research and evaluation studies on NOVA programming. Additionally, she lectures at UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management on strategic environmental communication and media. She received a Master of Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in 2009 and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Brandeis University in 2005.

Justin W. Lipp

Director of the Faculty Center, Sonoma State University

Justin directs the Faculty Center at Sonoma State University, a collaboration between Academic Affairs and Information Technology. The Faculty Center serves as a hub for innovation and support for educational technology, course and program assessment, and faculty development. The Center also supports a variety of internal and external grants in faculty professional development and instructional innovation.

Ryan Medders

Assistant Professor, California Lutheran University

Ryan is an Assistant Professor of Communication at California Lutheran University. His research addresses the social and psychological effects of the media with a focus on credibility and news. He teaches courses in mass communication, research methods, political communication, and international media. His dissertation examined the influence of credibility and need for cognition on selective exposure to partisan news on the Internet.

Anne Merrill

Post-Doctoral Lecturer, Penn State University

Anne is a post-doctoral lecturer in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University and will start a tenure-track assistant professor position there in 2015.  Her research interests lie within interpersonal, relational, and family communication, focusing on processes such as information regulation (i.e., topic avoidance, disclosure, secrecy, and privacy), conflict, uncertainty, stress, and coping.  Anne’s dissertation examined the extent to which romantic partners’ sense of couple identity predicts their communicative and physiological management of stress and conflict in their relationship.

Christopher Seaman

Survey Research Analyst, UC Santa Barbara

Christopher is a Survey Research Analyst for the Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment (IRPA) group in the Office of the Assistant Chancellor, Budget & Planning. He is responsible for all aspects of survey research projects conducted by IRPA on behalf of the University's Senior officers, administrators, and academic departments conducting surveys for assessment. This includes consultation, questionnaire design, programming, survey administration, data processing, data analysis, and report writing.  In addition, he works as a freelance consultant providing data analysis services and research solutions to a variety of clients from diverse backgrounds. Past projects have included GIS data analysis, survey questionnaire feedback and construction, and descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of survey and experimental data.

Chan Thai

Cancer Research Training Award Post-Doctoral Fellow, National Cancer Institute

Chan is a post-doctoral fellow in the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute where her work focuses on physical activity and nutrition attitudes and behaviors among children and their parents in the United States.  Her research interests include health and cancer communication, program evaluation, media literacy, and information processing and outcomes such as dietary behavior, food purchasing behaviors, and physical activity.  Chan's dissertation focused on the initial development of a measure for media literacy based on Potter's Cognitive Model of Media Literacy. 

2013

M. Desiree Aldeis

Lecturer, University of California Santa Barbara

Desiree is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication at UCSB. Her research interests include the dark side of interpersonal and family communication. Desiree’s dissertation examined the effects of discovering putative secrets in romantic relationships.

Courtney W. Davis

Assistant Professor, Azusa Pacific University

Courtney’s research interests include organizational membership, specifically focused on organizational entry and exit, in addition to intergenerational communication and organizational identification.  Having fully enjoyed her collegiate experience at the University of Southern California and doctoral work at UC Santa Barbara, Courtney is passionate about coaching and equipping undergraduate students for their post-collegiate endeavors, engaging others in research with practical and meaningful implications, and encouraging growth in people, groups, processes, and organizations.

Bernadette Gailliard

Assistant Professor, Rutgers University

Organizational Communication, Race, Gender, Class, Identity Negotiation, Identification, Member Assimilation

Jessica Gasiorek

Assistant Professor, Department of Communicology, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Dr. Gasiorek is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Communicology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research focuses on message processing and its effects on perceptions of communication, social dynamics, and people’s subjective well-being. She pursues three related lines of research, focusing on (1) communication (non)accommodation and message processing; (2) the role of communication in experiences of successful aging; and (3) problematic communication in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic medical interactions. Her published work includes both empirical articles and book chapters on these topics, and she is the 2014 recipient of International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP)'s James J. Bradac Early Career Award. She is also actively involved in NCA's Communication and Aging Division, ICA's Intergroup Communication Interest Group, and IALSP.

For more information, see: https://jgasiorek.wordpress.com/

Cynthia DeMartino

Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, California Lutheran University

As the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, a researcher, and a professor, my goal is to advance the use of techniques and technologies that promote student learning. I achieve this via rigorous research in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and by implementing teaching development workshops for Cal Lutheran faculty. My areas of research and faculty support include culturally responsive teaching, blended learning, and supporting graduate student writing.

Rebekah Pure

Survey Manager, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago

Bekah earned her B.A. in Speech Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007, and her M.A. in 2010 from UCSB. Her master’s thesis looked at the psychological consequences of online and offline victimization. Rebekah’s current research looks at online privacy behavior and the constitutional issues surrounding online privacy, credibility in a social media environment, and aggression in the digital age. 

Stephanie Robbins

Assistant Professor, School of Communication Studies, Ohio University

Stephanie (Robbins) Tikkanen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. Dr. Tikkanen’s research program focuses on the growing role of new media (e.g., social networking sites, mobile phones) in interpersonal relationships. Specifically, she takes a theoretical and quantitative approach to understanding the way in which channel and structural features interact with individual and relational motivations to affect interpersonal processes across relational types, including families, romantic partners, and friends. Her work has been published in outlets such as Journal of Communication, Health Communication, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, and Communication Research Reports, as well as competitive papers presented at national conferences. In 2011, Dr. Tikkanen was awarded the Top Thesis Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of ICA, and won the 2014 Top Dissertation Award from the Human Communication and Technology Division at NCA. She values her role as a teacher-scholar and holds a Certificate in College and University Teaching from UCSB and has been awarded department-level and university-wide recognition for excellence in teaching. At OU, she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on topics such as interpersonal communication, nonverbal communication, empirical research methods, and social media.

Amber Westcott-Baker

Assistant Professor, University of Maryland

Persuasion, Health Communication, Media Enjoyment, Media Cognitive and Emotional Processes

Jinguang (Andrew) Zhang

Assistant Professor, University of Hawai'i at Manoa   

Intergroup and Media Communication

2012

Amanda Denes

Assistant Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Communication, University of Connecticut

Amanda Denes is an Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on communication in various types of interpersonal relationships such as romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, and friendships. Much of her work looks at the association between communication in interpersonal relationships and people’s physiological, psychological, and relational health. In particular, she is interested in why individuals disclose information about themselves to others, how they disclose that information, and the effects of such disclosures on individuals and their relationships. Her research has been published in such outlets as Human Communication Research, Communication Research, and Personal Relationships, and her study on pillow talk published in Communication Monographs is listed as one of the journals top 10 most read articles. Dr. Denes’ research looking at the relationship between communication, hormones, and sexuality has been funded by such organizations as the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Her research on pillow talk has been featured in over 100 news and media outlets, such as Women’s Health Magazine, Men’s Health Magazine, ABC News Radio, CNN Health, Jezebel, Refinery29, and Discovery News.

Jody Jahn

Assistant Professor, University of Colorado-Boulder

Jody holds a PhD in Organizational Communication from UC Santa Barbara. She worked a year as a postdoc with the UCSB Department of Communication before joining the CU faculty. Her current research examines how wildland firefighting workgroups collectively develop techniques for navigating hazards. This research is driven by theories of high reliability organizing (HRO) and communication constitutes organization (CCO). Jody was the 2012 recipient of the UCSB Lancaster Dissertation Award for the Social Sciences, and the 2013 recipient of the W. Charles Redding Dissertation Award from the Organizational Communication division of the International Communication Association. Jody earned an MA in Communication from UCSB (2008) and a BS in Communication from University of Idaho (2001). Prior to graduate school, she spent eight boreal summers as a wildland firefighter and two austral summers in Antarctica working in a logistical support capacity for the US Antarctic Program.

Andrea Joseph

Paul Kang

Abigail Prestin

Was Social Scientist, Center for Tobacco Products, Federal Drug Administration (deceased)

Abby’s research focused on the use of media and technology to engage psychological, social, and behavioral processes that reduce cancer risk. Within this area, she explores the influence of cognition and emotion on persuasive outcomes of health communication, the utility of emotion theory to inform the design of empowering health messages, and the implications of social media for health communication. Abby completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute prior to beginning her current position as a social scientist in the Office of Science at the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. In this role, she conducts research on issues related how communication about tobacco products (e.g., labeling, advertising, marketing, health warnings) affects consumers’ knowledge, attitudes, and use of those products. She also provides scientific support in the development and evaluation of youth-targeted anti-tobacco public education campaigns. Her master’s thesis won the 2009 Thesis of the Year Award from the ICA/NCA Health Communication Division, and her dissertation was awarded the 2013 Kyoon Hur Dissertation Award from ICA’s Mass Communication Division.

Jiyeon So

Assistant Professor, University of Georgia

Her dissertation was entitled "Risk convergence model: A model of media's influence on self-other social distance and personal risk perceptions." Dr. So was the recipient of Thesis of the Year Award from the Health Communication Divisions of the National Communication Association (NCA) and International Communication Association (ICA). She has also won three top paper awards from NCA and ICA. With interests in health communication, media, and risk communication, Dr. So has a steady track record of publishing theory-driven research in top journals in communication in general as well as in health communication journals.

Kimberly Stoltzfus

2011

Grace Anderson

Assistant Professor, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama

My research interest is two pronged. First, I research intercultural communication and how the (cultural) groups to which people belong shape their behavior and communication patterns. Second, I research the way women become aggressive towards other women, many times indirectly or by exploiting a mutual social group. These forms of aggression include gossip, spreading rumors, and social exclusion. Both lines of my research utilize evolutionary theory to explain human behavior. Many of the factors that influenced our human ancestors still influence our behavior in present day. For instance, women tend to communicate indirect aggression rather than physical aggression typical of men because women are more likely to experience injury from physical aggression in comparison to men. Physical strength or brawn does not influence aggression among women, rather I found that women's physical attractiveness in comparison to their rival will predict their aggression. Women become aggressive towards rivals who are less attractive because they feel entitled to succeed during competition over mates. In terms of intercultural communication, my research (in collaboration with others) has found that humans avoid those of different nationalities when in environments high in pathogens because they do not share similar immunity to pathogens. A person from another country may be immune but in fact carry pathogens that could make a person of another nationality very ill, perhaps fatally ill. This evidence suggests that humans have evolved to avoid foreign others when primed by pathogens in the environments. These are some of the ways in which ancestral factors predict human communication in the present day, and this will continue to be the focus of my research about gender and intercultural communication in the future. Dissertation Title: Aggression among Women is Calibrated by Physical Attractiveness, Machiavellian Intelligence, but not Ovulatory Fertility: An Experimental Test of the Recalibration Theory of Anger.

Beverly Bondad-Brown

Director of Academic Technology, California State University, Los Angeles

Beverly A. Bondad-Brown, Ph.D. is currently the Director of Academic Technology at California State University, Los Angeles.  As the Director of Academic Technology in the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning (CETL), she provides strategic leadership in employing technology to advance teaching and learning at Cal State LA.  This includes faculty development for the campus learning management system, the campus’ active learning classrooms, and overseeing programming for faculty who wish to redesign courses to the flipped, hybrid, and/or fully online formats. Dr. Bondad-Brown received her B.A. in Communication from the University of California San Diego, an M.A. in Instructional Technology and Media from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from UC Santa Barbara in 2011.

Katy Pearce

Assistant Professor, University of Washington

Katy E. Pearce is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington and also holds an affiliation with the Ellison Center for Russian East European, and Central Asian Studies. She specializes in technology and media use in the Former Soviet Union. Her research focuses on social and political uses of technologies and digital content in the transitioning democracies and semi-authoritarian states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, but primarily Armenia and Azerbaijan. She has a BA in Armenian Studies and Soviet Studies from the University of Michigan, an MA in International Studies from the University of London School for Oriental and African Studies, and a PhD in Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was a Fulbright scholar (Armenia). Blog: http://katypearce.net/cv/

2005

René Dailey

Associate Professor, University of Texas-Austin

Dr. René Dailey is interested in communication in families and dating relationships. Regarding family communication, her research focuses on how acceptance and challenge from parents and siblings are related to children's psychosocial adjustment (e.g., self-esteem, identity), communication patterns (e.g., openness), and more recently, weight management. Regarding dating relationships, she is currently investigating communication in on-again/off-again relationships and how communication in these relationships differs from other dating relationships. Her work has appeared in journals such as Communication Monographs, Human Communication Research, and Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. She also co-edited a book with Dr. Beth Le Poire entitled Applied Interpersonal Communication Matters: Family, Health, and Community Relations. Dr. Dailey teaches courses in personal relationships and nonverbal communication.

Nicholas A. Palomares

Associate Professor, UC Davis 

Dr. Palomares' research emphasizes message production and processing in two primary areas of communication in social interaction: language use and conversational behavior. His conversational-behavior research examines the goals individuals pursue in their interactions with others and the factors associated with goal pursuit. Specifically, he seeks to understand how individuals detect others' goals and what consequences individuals' inferences of others' goals have on both goal detectors and goal pursuers. His research on goal detection highlights the cognitive mechanisms that influence the accuracy of goal inferences. His language-use research focuses on the cognitive structures and processes responsible for producing gender-based language differences and similarities (e.g., emotional language, tentative language, etc.) between men and women in face-to-face and mediated social interactions, as well as the consequences that emerge from such language. For more information, see http://communication.ucdavis.edu/people/nap/

Jennifer Waldeck

Associate Professor, Chapman University-Orange, CA

Jennifer Waldeck specializes in instructional and organizational communication research, with an emphasis on the effective use of new and emerging technologies for learning purposes. Her research has appeared in such journals as Communication Monographs, Communication Education, The Journal of Applied Communication Research, Communication Research Reports, and The Journal of Business Communication. She has contributed to several edited volumes including Communication Yearbook, New Directions in Group Communication, and the Handbook of Instructional Communication. She has earned "Top Three" Paper designations at the National Communication Association, International Communication Association, and Eastern Communication Association. She has authored several instructional manuals and texts and recently coauthored a textbook entitled Business and Professional Communication in the Digital Age, to be published by Wadsworth Cengage in 2012.

2004

Carrie Cropley Hutchinson

Assistant Professor, Santa Barbara City college

Carrie Cropley Hutchinson is a tenured Assistant Professor and the Course Director for Interpersonal Communication, Mediated Interpersonal Communication, Business/Professional Communication, and Mediated Business Communication. She obtained her M.A. from California State University, Fullerton with an emphasis in Interpersonal Communication, and her Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara with an emphasis in Interpersonal and Intergroup Communication. Dr. Hutchinson enjoys traveling, and especially leading students on study abroad programs. Recent destinations through SBCC include Australia, India, and Rwanda.  Dr. Hutchinson has published two textbooks in her areas of expertise and enjoys writing about human communication for both business and pleasure.

Keren Eyal

Senior Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Center Hertzliya, Israel

Dr. Keren Eyal received her PhD in communication from the University of California, Her specializations are media content and effects, with a focus on the media's role in youth socialization.

Jennifer Molloy

Carolyn Shepard (Baham)

Program Director, Innovative Learning, LLC, College of Applied Human Services

2003

Jessica R. Abrams

Associate Professor, Cal ifornia State University Long Beach

Jessica studies intergroup communication. She is particularly interested in understanding the relationship between communication and identity and how mass media shape perceptions of minority groups. She is currently developing a series of investigations that examine the social psychological processes and effects of disparaging intergroup jokes. Dr. Abrams has published articles in a variety of communication journals.

Ashley Duggan

Associate Professor, Boston College

Dr. Duggan's main research interests include nonverbal, relational, and health communication. She is currently working on projects examining interpersonal control tactics in romantic couples including one depressed individual, emotional experience and expression in provider-patient contexts, nonverbal communication behaviors in conversations about physical and mental health, and family communication surrounding illness.

Christopher Hajek

Associate Professor, University of Texas-San Antonio

Dr. Christopher Hajek's research is grounded in intergroup communication, with foci at the intersections of health, aging, and social stigma. His work has also explored relationships between group identity and police/community interaction outcomes. His teaching interests in intergroup and intercultural communication developed during his work as an intern for CNN and The Associated Press in Rome, and his Peace Corps experience in Rwanda preceding that country's genocide. His teaching has also been influenced by his experience as a trained mediator in community-based alternative dispute resolution.

Robert McCann

Professor, UCLA Anderson School of Management

Dr. Robert M. (Bob) McCann (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara) is a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.  At UCLA Anderson, Bob creates, directs, and teaches management communication and leadership classes across virtually all of UCLA Anderson's MBA degree programs.  Dr. McCann is also the President of The McCann Group, Incorporated, a consulting firm that specializes in the training of executives and professionals in persuasion, leadership, workplace diversity, and all aspects of the strategic use of communication in business settings. 

Dr. McCann's primary areas of research include strategic communication, persuasion, workplace ageism, intergroup communication, and intercultural communication.  In these domains, he has been published in several major refereed communication journals and has won numerous research awards. Bob also serves on the executive editorial board of the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication. His latest book is entitled Ageism at Work: The Role of Communication in a Changing Workplace. The book is available in three languages (Spanish, Catalan, and English).

Hee Sun Park

Associate Professor, Michigan State University

Dr. Park's teaching topics include Organizational Communication and Research Methods and Statistics at undergraduate and graduate levels. Her recent research focuses on multilevel analyses of group and organizational communication and cross-cultural communication in various contexts. Specifically, she is interested in examining the processes of how people build shared understanding through communication.

Bryant Paul

Associate Professor of Media Science, The Media School, Indiana University. 

Bryant Paul joined IU's Department of Telecommunications in 2003 (B.S., New York University; M.A., University of Miami (FL), Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara). Research and teaching interests include the nature and effects of sexual messages in the media, media and sexual socialization, evolutionary psychological explanations for media effects, and First Amendment law and policy.  Recent research has focused primarily on the nature and effects of online sexually explicit material. Aims to undertake empirical research that is intellectually interesting, but which also has practical applications in the non-academic world.  Has undertaken research that has been cited by the US Supreme Court in decisions related to the regulation of adult businesses, worked with multiple companies in product and message development, and served as a Co-producer of the Netflix Emmy-nominated documentary Hot Girls Wanted.

Paul Wadleigh

Lecturer, Washington State University

International advertising and media; social identity; intergroup, intergenerational, and intercultural communication. 

2002

Dawna Ballard

Associate Professor, University of Texas-Austin

Dr. Dawna Ballard is interested in how our working lives shape our experience of time in multiple ways, both personally and professionally.  As examples, she has studied the relationship between working time (including fast-paced work environments, multi-tasking, long-term planning, and time-management issues) and related outcomes (including job satisfaction, relational quality, communication in meetings, and information overload).  Her interests are reflected in two related lines of research—one focused on differences in time across varied occupational groups, the other centered on the role of technology in shaping the pace and timing of our work.   Most recently, she has studied the way that members of different occupational groups manage multiple aspects of time in their day-to-day and long-term activities.  Her latest project on this issue examines time in the athletic career.  Additionally, she is interested in issues of time and space associated with new communication technologies and related work practices (such as virtual teams and bloggers) and recently completed a study on early adopters of Twitter.com.

Karen Erlandson

Department Chair, Professor, Communication Studies, Albion College

Karen Erlandson is a Department Chair and Full Professor in the Communication Studies Department at Albion College in Michigan.  She was appointed here in 2002 just after graduation from UCSB with her Ph.D. in Interpersonal Communication.

Jennifer Hallett

Chair and Associate Professor, and Faculty Athletics Representative, Young Harris College, Georgia

Dr. Hallett's teaching interests focus on intergroup and interpersonal communication topics including: language and social interaction; gender, family, nonverbal, intercultural, deception, relational, social dominance and conflict management. Her research agenda has been guided primarily by intergroup issues including gender and (mis)communication as well as language and intergroup communication.

Margaret Prescott

Jiro Takai

Professor, Nagoya University, Japan

Lara Zwarun

Associate Professor, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Dr. Zwarun's scholarly interests are in persuasion, particularly in how the media are used to convey messages about risky behaviors. Her research has analyzed how alcohol advertising is processed by viewers, if the tobacco and junk food industries adhere to self-regulatory guidelines for their marketing, and how substance use is portrayed in celebrity gossip via Twitter. She is also interested in the use of media literacy as a health prevention strategy, and how multitasking affects narrative persuasion. She enjoys teaching mass communication and research methods classes.

2001

Valerie Barker

Lecturer; Chair - Digital and Social Media Research Task Force; San Diego State University

Her most recent research focuses on the social identity processes associated with social networking sites. In this context she has investigated the role of gender, culture, and age. Dr. Barker's current research involves intergroup surveillance and contact via social media (i.e., lurking on Facebook). Other research strings focus on two broad areas of intergroup communication: the role of language in social identity, and intergenerational communication from an intergroup perspective.

Kirstie (Cope) Farrar

Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Connecticut

Kirstie M. Farrar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut. She also holds a research affiliation with UConn’s Center for Health Intervention and Prevention. Her research interests include the effects of the mass media on individuals, particularly concerning violent video games and aggression. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Communication, Media Psychology, Mass Communication & Society, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments and the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.

Hiroshi Ota

Professor, Aichi Shukutoku University, Japan

Intergenerational Communication across cultures, Communication and motivations for second/ foreign language acquisition, communication and physical appearances, Intergenerational communication, intergroup/intercultural communication, Beliefs about intra-and intergenerational communication in Japan, the Philippines, and the United States: Implication for older adults subjective well-being.

1995

Jon Busch

Director, Research Data Development, Truven Health Analytics, Santa Barbara, CA

Served as principal investigator, project director, or project manager for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Library of Medicine, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Develops systems of data repositories, Web-based documentation, electronic surveys, and reporting systems that include relational, analytic (e.g., SAS), and hierarchical (e.g., XML) data structures; collects and analyzes data from States, Federal agencies, and other entities. Currently is the project manager for the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP)—under his leadership, the project cut processing time in half, increased the research capacity of the research team through hiring and subcontracting, promoted the use of HCUP by the research community, and developed My Own Network, powered by AHRQ (MONAHRQ). Designed, produced, and disseminated over 20 technical reports and other documents.

Charles Mullin

Continuing Lecturer, Department of Communication, UC Santa Barbara

Dr. Mullin’s research pursuits over the years have mostly concerned the intersection of mass media and the law in some way. He has published research on the nature of and effects of various forms of pretrial publicity and crime-related information.

Laura Leets

Adjunct Associate Professor, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Exclusion, hate speech, cyberhate 

B. Christine Shea

Professor, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA

She is the author of more than 30 papers, articles, and book chapters on organizational behavior, communication, and gender issues. Her current research interests include fairness in the workplace and women's employment, organizational communication, gender issues, and social science research methods. Dr. Shea serves on the board of directors for the San Luis Obispo Rape Crisis Center and is involved in educating the public about violence prevention.In addition to teaching Communication Studies courses, Dr. Shea teaches courses for the Women's Studies Department. 

1994

Susan Fox

Adjunct Faculty, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University; Community Organizer

Since 9/11/2001 Susan has led efforts to create online and offline networks of people who can support each other and the community. Susan was chosen as one of the District Attorney’s Brooklyn Extraordinary Women for 2009 and a Woman of Distinction in 2010 by New York State Senator Eric Adams. Susan founded Park Slope Parents in July, 2002. The group supports each other online by sharing information about parenting (e.g., “does anyone know a pediatric cardiologist?”) and urban living (“how can I keep my toddler safe around my apartment steam pipe?”). There is also a strong offline component as well, including a Spring Fling, kids’ music concerts and clothing swaps. There are also partnerships with non-profit organizations to provide child-related items (e.g., clothing, cribs, blankets) for needy families. She teaches a graduate course in Interpersonal Communication at NYU as well as consults comapnies in strategic marketing and communications.

Jake Harwood

Professor, University of Arizona

Jake Harwood's research focuses on intergroup communication with a particular focus on age groups. He is interested in the ways in which cognitive (e.g., stereotypes) and societal (e.g., mass media) representations of groups relate to communication processes. This includes research on intergroup contact (including how attitudes about groups are influenced by direct and indirect contact with those groups), and issues such as how stereotypes of age influence and are influenced by grandparent-grandchild relationships. He also examines portrayals of groups in the media, and how those portrayals influence attitudes about groups. His research draws on theories of social identity, intergroup contact, and communication accommodation.

Laurie Lewis

Professor and Dept. Chair, Rutgers University, New Jersey

Dr. Lewis is a recognized expert in communication processes during organizational change. She recently published her first book “Organizational Change: Creating Change Through Strategic Communication."  Her research has appeared in Human Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Journal of Business Communication among others.  She current serves as Associate Editor for Management Communication Quarterly, and has served on the editorial boards of Human Communication Research, Communication Monographs, andManagement Communication Quarterly and Journal of Applied Communication Research.  She is an active member of the National Association of Communication, International Association of Communication, Academy of Management, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, and the National Association of Planning Councils.

Audrey Weiss

Researcher, Truven Health Analytics, Santa Barbara, CA

Dr. Weiss has nearly 15 years of health care industry experience. She specializes in research design, data collection, data analysis, and management of large-scale research studies for the Federal Government and private sector. Task leader for the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP); Generates rapid-cycle estimates of trends in inpatient hospitalizations; Develops concise statistical summaries of focused health care topics; Project director for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) demonstrations; Senior Risk Reduction; Cancer Prevention and Treatment; Project director for CMS Medicare Episode Grouper project.

Angela Williams

Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom

Social psychological approaches to language and communication. Communication across the life-span, the communication of agism, perceptions of elder and teenage communicators, Eastern and Western perspectives on intergenerational communication. Media images of elders and teenagers.