Current Students

HADIL ABUHMAID, PhD candidate, Media Studies

Research Interests: film and culture, community cultural development, and communication.


AIDANA BOLATBEKKYZY, PhD, East Asian Languages & Literatures

Research Interests: Confinement Literature, Censorship, Spatial Politics, State Terrorism


ZOË GAMELL BROWN, PhD, Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies

Research Interests: Boviander ecological knowledge, Caribbean restorative cartographies, Critical autotheory, Critical ocean studies, Culinary catharsis, Healing praxis, Hyperrealism, Queer diaspora


SHANE L. BURRELL, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: Virtual reality, media effects, culture, gaming studies, new media,  identification, embodiment, and immersion


ASHER CAPLAN, PhD, Philosophy

Research Interests: Philosophy of Media and Technology, Social/Political Epistemology (esp. trust, expertise, and misinformation), AI Ethics, American Pragmatism


TERESA CAPRIOGLIO, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: The Representation of queer trauma on television, fan cultures, and television in the age of new media


TERI CHEONG, PhD, Department of English

Research Interests: Queer and Disabled representations in pop culture and new media


SPENCER CHERASIA, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: Medieval Architecture, digital modeling and reconstructions, and Digital Humanities broadly


GABRIELA CHITWOOD, PhD, History of Art and Architecture

Research Interests: Digital Games studies, Re-contextualized Artistic, Architectural, and Artifactual Semiotics with Video Gameplay


KISA CLARK, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: Health communication, Advocacy, and New Media


ASH CONNELL-GONZALEZ, PhD, English

Research Interests: Comics and Comic Theory, Androids, Queer Studies, Post-Modern Narratives, New Media and Culture, Post/Transhumanisms, Digital Narratives


RYAN DAVIES, PhD, English

Research Interests: Game Studies, Tabletop Studies, Queer Studies, Disability Studies/Crip Theory, Critical Race Theory, Cinema Studies, Speculative Fiction


MEGAN DENNENY, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: Adolescent Media Use, Adolescent Risk Behaviors, Sexual Health and Gender Violence Prevention, Higher Education and Media Studies


LAURA GATTIS, PhD, SOJC

Research interests: The connection between politicized news sources and the core beliefs of their audiences regarding climate change


KATHLEEN ANN GEKIERE, PhD, English and Environmental Studies

Research interests: Speculative Fiction, Video Games, Digital Humanities, Ecocriticism, Environmental Humanities, Posthumanism, Animal Studies, Science Fiction, Science Studies, Eco-feminism


JOHN GUZMAN, MA, Media Studies

Research interests: the intersections of environmental criticism, disability studies, and media – particularly the complications introduced by new media and technologies.


THEODORE HARRISON, PhD, Media Studies

Research interests: how minority media representations function in American society, specifically how they interact with and impact minority populations


FRIDA HEITLAND, PhD, English

Research interests: Comics Studies, Ecomedia, and Video Game Studies


EMILEE JACKSON, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: Representation of marginalized communities in the news media


MARENA LEAR, PhD, Comparative Literature

Research Interests: 20th and 21st Century English Language Poetry/Poetics, Latin American Film & Literature, Film and Digital Media Studies, Feminist Theory, Gender Studies


PEARL LEE, PhD, Comparative Literature

Research Interests: Biopolitics; Neo-Marxism; 20th- and 21st- century East Asian and Latin American literatures engaging with neoliberalism; Asian diasporic literature; film, animation and comic studies


RACHAEL SOL LEE, PhD, English and Environmental Studies

Research Interests: 21st and 22nd century fiction, urban landscapes, queer cultural production, affect theory and posthumanisms, environmental justice


YEI WON LIM, PhD, Comparative Literature

Research Interests: Transnational flows of film, film reception, media production and practices in South Korea and Southeast Asia, Diaspora studies


ANNIE LIU, MA, Musicology, MM Bassoon Performance

Research Interests: social media, brand persona, celebrity-fan relationships, music popularization, music perception and cognition, ethnomusicology


SAMANTHA LORENZO, PhD, Communication & Media Studies

Research Interests: Deceptive Language, Popular Culture, Conspiracy Theories, Media Effects on Millennials and Generation Z


OLIVIA MATSUOKA, PhD, English

Research Interests: 20th and 21st-century speculative fiction, Asian/Asian American literature, narrative theory, postcolonial theory, digital humanities


MOLLY MCBRIDE, PhD, Anthropology

Research Interests: Queer cultural production in the US, metronormativity, folklore, and digital humanities


ANDREW MCLAUGHLIN, PhD, Media Studies

Research interests: commodification and representation of veterans and military culture in media; visual rhetoric, persuasion, and experimental and documentary filmmaking


MARIAM NADEEM, PhD Comparative Literature

Research Interests: 20th Century English, Arabic and Urdu Literature, Archives of Communist Internationalism in South Asia and the Middle East, Anthropological Critiques of Secularism


GERARDO PISACANE, PhD, Romance Language

Research Interests: Digital Humanities, Queer Studies and Television Studies, with a focus on online content providers such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and the changes they ignited within the television landscape.


GENEVIEVE J. PFEIFFER, PhD, English

Research Interests: Genevieve is interested in the intesections of the ecohumanities, particularly multispecies studies, and new media.


AMANDA ROBINSON, PhD, German

Research Interests: Black/Trans Sexuality, Black Feminism, Digital Feminism, Intersectionality


FARIA SHAIKH, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: Human-Technology Interactions, Health and Science Communication, and Media Psychology


HAIFA SOULIMI, PhD, Political Science

Research Interests: I am interested in Democratization, Politics of the MENA region and the Mediterranean including the role of mass media in political change. I am also interested in the US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa and Media representation of such policies. My latest work was on the democratic consolidation in Tunisia.


STEPHEN SSENKAABA, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: New Media, Storytelling, Folklore, Journalism Practice in Africa


ANU SUGATHAN, PhD, English

Research interests: Comics and Graphic novels, Postcolonial Theory, Visual Culture, South Asian Literature and Cinema.


SOFIA VICENTE-VIDAL, PhD, Anthropology

Research Interests: heritage, labor politics, indigeneity, globalization, transnationalism


ANDREW WILSON, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests:  Game Studies, Cultural Studies, Social Media Studies, Gender & Identity, Hegemony, Power


NICK WIRTZ, PhD, Comparative Literature

Research Interests: Representation and indexicality in American, European, Japanese visual media (comics, photography, technology); semiotics; media genealogy; abstraction; nonfiction; visual rhetoric; ethics; trauma


EMRAKEB WOLDEAREGAY, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: health promotion, development campaigns and political communication, audience research of legacy and new media, and audience research on identity formation of marginalized groups such as women and unemployed youth


SHUXI WU, MA, Asian Studies

Research Interests: Platform Studies, Infrastructure Studies, Critical Internet and Algorithm Studies, Chinese Cyberspace, Platform Urbanism, Platform Capitalism


SHUO XU, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: New Media, Media culture studies, and Media
Censorship in China


ASAKO YONAN, PhD, IRES

Research Interests: My research falls at the intersection of Asian American studies, digital humanities, Japanese American incarceration, and critical race and ethnic studies


TINGYU ZOU, PhD, Media Studies

Research Interests: Communication of health-related issues via new media


PROGRAM GRADUATES