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