Shaunak Sastry was appointed upon his hiring at UC Santa Barbara, for the Department of Communication, as the new Director of the Pahl Center for the Study of Critical Social Issues (https://pahlcenter.ucsb.edu/) in the Division of Social Sciences. Shaunak has made such an impression on the Pahls that they decided yesterday to donate an additional $1 million to the Division to sponsor an Endowed Chair for him.

Frances Jereb won the URCA (Undergrad Research and Creative Activities) SLAM on Monday May 14 2026. Her presentation was on her undergraduate thesis, "Remembering Our Green Selves: Exploring Climate Attitudes Through Identity and Memorable Messages." The thesis was developed under the guidance of Professor Guadalupe Madrigal and further developed with Professors Gordon Abra & Jennifer Gibbs in the Department of Communication’s Senior Honors Program. The Undergraduate Research Slam is a competition where participants have just three minutes to give a dynamic presentation of their research project (https://urca.ucsb.edu/urca-week/slam).

Kyungin Kim has received a 2026-2027 Graduate Division Dissertation Fellowship for her dissertation: The Communicative Production of Disenfranchisement and Resistance among Family Members of Formerly Incarcerated Individuals.

Chengyu Fang will be joining the University of Cincinnati in Fall 2026 as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Communication, Film, and Media Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. He looks forward to continuing his research and teaching in organizational communication, particularly around technology, organizations, and emerging forms of work and collaboration, and to enjoying life in Cincinnati.

Lindsay Miller will join Central Oregon Community College in Fall 2026 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Communication. As the fifth faculty member of COCC's Communication program, she looks forward to working closely with students, helping support the continued growth of the program, and returning to Oregon to enjoy adventuring in the Pacific Northwest outdoors.

Musa Malik will join the University of Oklahoma as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, housed in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, beginning Fall 2026.

Congratulations to Tammy Afifi for receiving a UCSB Faculty Senate Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award! This award is highly competitive and recognizes sustained exemplary contributions in mentoring graduate students, both during their time at UCSB as well as in their subsequent careers (see https://senate.ucsb.edu/~awards/). 

Professor Norah Dunbar in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara has received a nearly $600,000 research grant from the U.S. Army Research Office to study how trust develops in teams and how it influences performance. The project is titled ”AI-based Characterization of Trust and Dominance for Team Performance.” Conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Southern California, the project will examine how subtle communication behaviors—such as nonverbal signals, interpersonal synchrony, and displays of dominance—shape trust among team members.

Although trust is widely recognized as essential for effective teamwork, scientists still do not fully understand how it forms or how it changes over time. Dunbar’s team will investigate these dynamics by observing teams working together across multiple sessions and by analyzing patterns in how people communicate verbally and nonverbally. The project will also develop new artificial intelligence tools that can automatically analyze team interactions, helping researchers identify behaviors that signal trust, influence, and cooperation. These tools may ultimately make it possible to measure complex team processes more accurately than ever before.

By combining communication theory with advanced machine learning methods, the research aims to produce new insights into how strong, effective teams are built and sustained. The findings may inform strategies for improving collaboration in high-stakes environments, from military operations to business, healthcare, and other team-based settings.

Rene Weber has been elected to become an inaugural Fellow of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS; https://socialaffectiveneuro.org/). The Society is committed to research investigating the neural basis of social and affective processes. The election highlights the interdisciplinary nature of Rene's research. The Society was founded in 2008 and now comprises over 400 members.