Current Students

HADIL ABUHMAID, PhD candidate, Media Studies

Research Interests: Film & Culture, Community Cultural Development, and Communication.


MELODY ALLISON, PhD, Environmental Studies

Research Interests: Environmental Philosophy, Degrowth, Science Communication, Podcasting


INTISAR ALSHAMMARI, PhD, English

Research Interests: Medieval Studies, Folkore, Digital Humanities


VASIL (WILL) ARGANELOV, PhD Communication and Media Studies

Research InterestGaming Communication, Media Psychology, Media Effects E-Sports, Interpersonal Communication


CHAILEN AUGUST, PhD, Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies

Research Interests: Black studies, Hip Hop, Black Popular Culture, African Diasporic Culture, Race/Ethnicity, Mobility, Black Geographies, Afrofuturism


RODLYN-MAE BANTING, PhD, Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies

Research InterestsCritical Filipinx Studies, Affect Theory, Whiteness Studies


NAHLA BENDEFFA, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: Critical Cultural Studies, Political Economy of the Media, Platform Studies, Food Media


AIDANA BOLATBEKKYZY, PhD, East Asian Languages & Literatures

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


DAKOTA BROWN, PhD, English

Research Interests: Environmental Humanities, Multispecies Studies, Extinction Studies, Media Studies, Literary and Critical Theory


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

Research Interests: Boviander Ecological Knowledge, Caribbean Restorative Cartographies, Critical Autotheory, Critical Ccean Studies, Culinary Catharsis, Healing Praxis, Hyperrealism, Queer diaspora


ASHER CAPLAN, PhD, Philosophy

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


SUE CARNEY, MA, Intermedia Music Technology

Research Interests: Data Sonification, Sound Cognition, Therapeutic Music


TERI CHEONG, PhD, Department of English

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


GABRIELA CHITWOOD, PhD, History of Art and Architecture

Research Interests: Medieval Architecture, Digital Modeling and Reconstructions, Digital Humanities 


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 FARMER, PhD, English

Research Interests: Popular Culture, Subcultures, Fan Studies


MICHAELA FLAHERTY, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: Themed Entertainment, Popular Culture Media Fandom, Television and Film Culture, Gender and Sexuality Studies


GIOVANNI FRANCISCHELLI, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: New Media, Documentary Films, YouTube, Social Media, Radicalism, Ideology, Political Communication, Political Economy, Platforms


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


SOPHIE GREWELL, PhD, Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies

Research Interests: Trans-indigenous Relationality, Indigenous Cartographies, Hawaiian Mobilities, global Indigeneities, Indigenous Digital Methods


JOHN GUZMAN, MA, Media Studies

Research Interests: Environmental Criticism, Disability Studies, and Media 


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


CASSANDRA HOGLUNDMA, Folklore and Public Culture

Research Interests: Video Games as Vernacular Culture


MADISON KOOBA, PhD, English

Research Interests: Comics Studies, Film & TV Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Video Games Studies, Feminist Theory


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


MADALYNN MADIGAR, PhD, English

Research Interests: Indigenous Futurisms, Petro-cultural Studies, Media Studies, Energy Humanities


AISHWARYA MARATHE, PhD, Comparative Literature

Research Interests: Contemporary Diasporic Literature and Cinema in US/UK/France, South Asian Film, Visual Culture, Gender Studies, Ethics of Representation, Epistemology, Postcolonial/Decolonial Studies, Citizenship Studies, Poetics, Postmodernism


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


SAM MILLER, PhD, English

Research interests: Paracinema, Cinephilia, Aesthetics, Critical Theory, Post-Cinema, Digitization, and Home Media


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


GOWRI NAIR, PhD, English

Research Interests: Comics, Visual Media and Culture, Media reception, Human Rights and Literature


Shao-Chi Ou, PhD, Comparative Literature

Research Interests: Island and Archipelagic Studies, Environmental Humanities, Comparative Media, Postcolonial Studies and Decoloniality, Translation Studies, Sinophone Studies, Francophone Studies, Caribbean Studies and Black Studies


NISHAT PARVEZ, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: Political Communication, Journalism, New Media, Trust in media, Gender and Identity, Critical Cultural Studies


JAMES PHILLIPS, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: Science Communication, Space Science, Space Policy, NASA, Narrative Paradigm, Framing Theory, Public Engagement with Science


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:  Ecohumanities, Multispecies studies, and Mew Media.


RAMTIN RANJPOUR, PhD, Strategic Communications

Research Interests: Public Relations Management, Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Brand Culture, User Experience (UX), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Emerging Technologies, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)


KISA SCHULTZ, PhD, English

Research Interests: Video Game Studies, Film & TV Studies, Cybernetics/Post-Humanism


CHELSEA SCHWARTZ, MA, Philosophy

Research Interests: Philosophy of Technology, Epistemological Effects of Technology, AI Ethics, Media Psychology, Surveillance Studies


SABRINA SONNER, PhD, Communications and Media Studies

Research Interests: Play Studies, Game Studies, Immersive media, and Community Formation


HAIFA SOULIMI, PhD, Political Science

Research Interests: Democratization, Politics of the MENA region and the Mediterranean including the role of mass media in political change; US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa and Media representation of such policies


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


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


GEN WITTER, PhD, English

Research Interests: Comic Studies, Queer studies, Environmental Humanities, Digital Narrative and Media, Posthumanism


SHUXI WU, MA, Asian Studies

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


ASAKO YONAN, PhD, IRES

Research Interests:  Asian American studies, Digital Humanities, Japanese American Incarceration, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies


HAOPENG YUAN, PhD, Communication and Media Studies

Research Interests: Content-sharing Social Media, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Generative Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence


ADA ZHANG, PhD, Sociology

Research Interests: Gender and Sexuality, Digital Intimacy, Emerging Technology, Generative AI, Video Games, Qualitative Research Methods


TINGYU ZOU, PhD, Media Studies

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