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Graduate Students

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There are about 75 M.A. and Ph.D. students in the Communication graduate program, with about 35-40 actively taking classes. All Communication graduate students are members of the Communication Graduate Student Association (CGSA), a professional and social community with the objective to improve the scholarly, collegial, and social atmosphere of the Department of Communication. The functions of CGSA are to facilitate the academic, social, and professional well being of graduate students and to help maintain a collaborative, collegial graduate student community. Please visit the Communication Graduate Student Association website (you will be directed to an external website) to learn more about our graduate students.

Communication Graduate Student Association

 

Recent Graduate Placement in Faculty Positions

Berea College

Dr. Kennaria Brown (Ph.D., 2007)

Berea College
Assistant Professor of English, Theatre and Speech Communication
Dissertation: "Good Women Becoming 'Queens': Young Mothers on Welfare as Cultural Readers"
Advisor: Dr. Mari Castañeda

USF

Dr. Garnet Butchart (Ph.D., 2006)

University of South Florida
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Psychoanalyzing Communication: Language, Subjectivity, Symbolization"
Advisor: Dr. Briankle G. Chang

Fitchburg State College

Dr. John A. Chetro-Szivos (Ph.D., 2001)

Fitchburg State College
Department Chair of Communications Media
Dissertation: "Exploring the Meaning of Work: A CMM Analysis of the Grammar of Working among Acadian-Americans"
Advisor: Dr. Vernon E. Cronen

UNLV

Dr. Lynn A. Comella (Ph.D., 2004)

University of Nevada Las Vegas
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Selling Sexual Liberation: Women-Owned Sex Toy Stores and the Business of Social Change"
Advisor: Dr. Lisa Henderson

Endicott

Dr. Amy M. Damico (Ph.D., 2004)

Endicott College
Associate Professor
Dissertation: "Exploring the Complexities of Personal Ideologies, Media Literacy Pedagogy and Media Literacy Practice"
Advisor: Dr. Leda Cooks

UWA

Dr. Alpha S. Delap (Ph.D., 2003)

University of Washington
Director of Research Services
Dissertation: "Recovering Trauma: An Ethnographic Study of Women's Storytelling within Contemporary Support Group Environments"
Advisor: Dr. Leda Cooks

USD

Dr. Esteban Del Rio (Ph.D., 2006)

University of San Diego
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies
Dissertation: "All of Us Americanos: Cultural Exhibition and the Rise of Latinos with a National Imaginary"
Advisor: Dr. Carolyn Anderson

Macalester

Dr. Vincent Doyle (Ph.D., 2005)

Macalester College
Mellon Postdoctoral fellow
Dissertation: "The Visibility Professionals: The Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation and the Cultural Politics of Mainstreaming"
Advisor: Dr. Lisa Henderson

Puerto Rico

Dr. Maximiliano Duenas Guzman (Ph.D., 2003)

Universidad de Puerto Rico
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Social Meanings of the Personal Computer in Puerto Rico: Consumption as the Communicative Praxes of Modernization and Social Power"
Advisor:

Worcester State College

Dr. Julie Frechette (Ph.D., 2000)

Worcester State College
Associate Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Media Literacy in Cyberspace: Learning to Critically Analyze and Evaluate the Internet"
Advisor: Dr. Leda Cooks

Westfield

Dr. Thomas N. Gardner (Ph.D., 2005)

Westfield State College
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Framing an Execution: Death, Lies, and Videotape: ABC 20/20 and the Rhetoric of Law and Order in the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"
Advisor: Dr. Michael Morgan

UMass

Dr. Olga Gershenson (Ph.D., 2003)

University of Massachusetts
Assistant Professor of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies
Dissertation: "Cultural Production and Zionist Idealogy: The Case Study of Gesher Theatre in Israel"
Advisor: Dr. Anne Ciecko

Xavier

Dr. Janice L. Haynes (Ph.D., 2005)

Xavier University of Lousiana
Assistant Professor of Communications
Dissertation: "Money Makes a Family: A Genealogy of Female-Headed Families, Welfare, and Media Representations"
Advisor: Dr. Michael Morgan

AIC

Dr. Will Hughes (Ph.D., 2005)

American International College
Assistant Professor of Communications
Dissertation: "The Green Car: Television Automobile Advertising and the Environmental Attitudes of Television Viewing"
Advisor: Dr. Michael Morgan

Suffolk

Dr. Nina B. Huntemann (Ph.D., 2005)

Suffolk University
Assistant Professor of Communication & Journalism
Dissertation: "Policy and Culture in the Digital Age: A Cultural Policy Analysis of the U.S. Commercial Radio Industry"
Advisor: Dr. Sut Jhally

Chapman

Dr. Wenshan Jia (Ph.D., 2000)

Chapman University
Associate Professor Communication Studies
Dissertation: "A Social Constructionist Perspective on the Chinese Lian/Mian (Face) Practices"
Advisor: Dr. Vernon E. Cronen

Westfield

Dr. Susan C. Leggett (Ph.D., 2001)

Westfield State College
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Atlanta's Sisters: Sport, Gender, and Technology in Popular Press, 1921-1996"
Advisor: Dr. Sally Freeman

Fitchburg State College

Dr. Viera Lorencova (Ph.D., 2006)

Fitchburg State College
Assistant Professor of Communicaions Media
Dissertation: "Becoming Visible: Queer in Postsocialist Slovakia"
Advisor: Dr. Lisa Henderson

Fitchburg State College

Dr. Lauren Mackenzie (Ph.D., 2005)

Fitchburg State College
Assistant Professor
Dissertation: "When Words Fail, Music Speaks: How Communication Transforms Identity"
Advisor: Dr. Donal Carbaugh

Suffolk

Dr. Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber (Ph.D., 2003)

Suffolk University
Assistant Professor of Communication & Journalism
Dissertation: "Media Construction of Public Sphere and the Discourse of Conflict: A Case Study of the Kidnapped Yemenite Babies Affair in Israel"
Advisor:

Monterrey

Dr. Dora Martinez-Ramos (Ph.D., 2003)

Universidad de Monterrey
Assistant Professor of Information & Communication
Dissertation: "The Desire to See: Western Iconoclasm and the Return of the Empty Image"
Advisor: Dr. Briankle G. Chang

Northeastern

Dr. Carmen McClish (Ph.D., 2007)

Northeastern University
Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow
Dissertation: "Social Protest, Freedom, and Play as Rebellion"
Advisor: Dr. Briankle G. Chang

Iowa

Dr. Kembrew McLeod (Ph.D., 2000)

University of Iowa
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership and Intellectual Property Law"
Advisor: Dr. Sut Jhally

Stonehill

Dr. Angela Paradise (Ph.D., 2007)

Stonehill College
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Trait Aggression and Style of Video Game Play: The Effects of Violent Video Game Play on Aggressive Thoughts"
Advisor: Dr. Erica Scharrer

Rutgers

Dr. Michelle Scollo (Ph.D., 2007)

Rutgers University
Lecturer of Communication
Dissertation: "Mass Media Appropriations: Communication, Culture, and Everyday Social Life"
Advisor:

UPenn

Dr. Katherine Sender (Ph.D., 2001)

University of Pennsylvania
Associate Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "Producing the Gay Market: Sex, Sexuality and the Gay Professional-Managerial Class"
Advisor: Dr. Lisa Henderson

Concordia

Dr. Matthew A. Soar (Ph.D., 2002)

Concordia University
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies
Dissertation: "Graphic Design/Graphic Dissent: Towards a Cultural Economy of an Insular Profession"
Advisor: Dr. Lisa Henderson

Western Connecticut State University

Dr. Denise Stephenson (Ph.D., 2006)

Western Connecticut State University
Assistant Professor of Communication
Dissertation: "The Politics of Help: The Rhetoric of Suicide and Suicide Prevention in the Mainstream Press"
Advisor:

NYU

Dr. Chyng-Feng Sun (Ph.D., 2002)

New York University
McGhee Professor of Media Studies
Dissertation: "Stories Matter: Media Influences on Asian American Identities and Interracial Relationships"
Advisor: Dr. Michael Morgan