Current Graduate Students (old)

Katty Alhayek

My scholarship is broadly centered around themes of gender, refugees, activism, and new technologies with interests in popular culture, critical cultural studies and the role of media in promoting social change and justice.
kalhayek@umass.edu

Mike Alvarez

The representation of cybersuicide in moving image media, and suicidal individuals' use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to create meaning in their lives.

Felicitas Baruch

Digital media, globalization, social movements, audience studies, immigration

Audrey Black

Through women, gender and sexuality studies I explore issues of identity, visibility, and recognition in narrative media and other popular culture.
ajblack@umass.edu

Alex W. Bordino

My general area of interest is American film history with a focus on documentary forms, and my teaching interests include film/video production and screenwriting.
abordino@umass.edu

Sarah Cho

My research interests are mainly in social interaction and identity, which are particularly the construction of social categories, and rapport building among different ethnic groups through their everyday talk.
sarahcho@umass.edu

Mary C. Dickman

My scholarship examines power relations, deconstructs discursive practices, and explores the relationship between language, thought, and reality; I am interested in how embodied subjects are constructed linguistically, the ways in which bodies are disciplined toward neoliberal ends, and the means that bodies resist normative cultural inscriptions.
mcdickman@umass.edu

Anton Dinerstein

My current research is focused on public creativity in modern-day Belarus. I employ Ethnography of Communication and Cultural Discourse Analysis to investigate how public creativity is related to social change and cultural transformation. I focus on identity, cultural rituals, and social mythology as reflected in everyday communication.
adinerstein@umass.edu

Eean Grimshaw

I am interested in examining how language and social interaction are understood in regards to Native American/Indigenous issues, specifically as it concerns language revitalization efforts.
egrimshaw@umass.edu

Woori Han

I am interested in cultural production, subjectivity, queer studies, digital media, and affect studies. My dissertation examines cultural production related to the Korea Queer Culture Festival to understand how senses of the self as queer are configured and reconfigured through affective and cultural practices.
whan@comm.umass.edu

Carmen Hernández-Ojeda

Drawing from critical communication/performance pedagogy and critical cultural studies, I advocate for using quotidian and staged performances to foster social change. My research contributes to a critical approach to the study of youth bullying.
chernandezoj@umass.edu

Diana Kasem

I work on film and theater (theory and analysis), culture and media, Art History, art for peace; electronic media, and making films.
dkasem@umass.edu

Dasol Kim

My research interests are in people's daily use of social media, especially how people's ethnic and racial identities are performed in YouTube. I approach this both from a qualitative oriented perspective and social network analysis.
daskim@umass.edu

Kylie Lanthorn

My scholarship centers broadly on critical cultural studies with interests in consumer culture and performance. My current research explores how ASMR videos use affect to create performances of caring as well as experiences of self-care.

Eunbi Lee

My research focuses on identity, surviving, belonging, and coalition in the context of human migration and border politics in communication and performance studies. I also research on critical media literacy and critical pedagogy for community media.
elee@umass.edu

Colby Miyose

I am interested in the studying protrayals of masculinity, love, romance, and sexuality in media. I also study Native Hawaiian culture and sovereighnty social movements.

Taliah Mortensen

I am interested in critical cultural studies and rhetoric, with a current focus on how people find and create spaces of belonging under potentially constricting circumstances.
tmortensen@commumass.edu

Kavita Nayar

Critical cultural studies of television and new media
knayar@umass.edu

EJ Nielsen

Interested in monsters, gender, fan studies, and the frequent intersections thereof

Christine Olson

My research explores technological inequalities, digital literacies, and collaborative media production practices.
cjolson@umass.edu

Gamze Onut

Media literacy and youth, digital media, cultural studies
gonut@comm.umass.edu

James Earl Owens

My dissertation work focuses on police communications, the technology and techniques through which police labor and identity gains social meaning and purpose. By examining labor as not only productive but communicative, my research opens a view on how embodied action organizes human and institutional agency. I am guided by ideas from transcultural and post/de-colonial studies, radical democratic theory, and historical research on struggles for freedom and movements of professionalization.
jeowens.comm.umass@gmail.com

Menno Reijven

Norms for public political discussions among ordinary citizens
mreijven@comm.umass.edu

Alina Ryabovolova

Nationalism, discourse analysis, narrative analysis, Bakhtinian theory, postsocialist Russia, history and memory, museum studies, political communication on social media
aryabovo@umass.edu

Nimrod Shavit

Ethnography of media production
nimshav@gmail.com

Tenzin Sharling

The broader areas of my disciplinary specialisation are Communication theory, Communication Policy, Critical Cultural Studies, Feminist Studies, Global Communication Studies and Media Effects. Given my extensive practical experiences in digital advocacy, my research interest lies in studying how digital media (technology and internet) can aid or can be harnessed in promoting human values online.
tsharling@umass.edu

blog: www.parakeetpensthewrit.com

Yijun Sun

My current research interests are in media philosophy and media history, especially how media interweave with science and aesthetics to form cultural technologies. 
yijunsun@umass.edu

J.D. Swerzenski

Through the critical pedagogy and new media literacy approaches, my interest is in uses of media technology in classroom practice, specifically in the service of developing critical thinking and responsible cultural production.
jswerzenskii@umass.edu

Erica Tortolani

Erica's interests include, but are not limited to: silent cinema, horror films, German Expressionist film, avant-garde and experimental film, film theory and criticism, and gender and sexuality studies.
etortolani@umass.edu

Porntip Israsena Twishime

My work centers narratives of how identity emerges and is performed in the everyday lives of Asian/Asian Americans; in particular, I am interested in how these lived experiences are/become agents of resistance against colonialism, racism, and other systems of injustice.
ptwishime@umass.edu

Stephen Warren

Television and streaming effects, media psychology, entertainment theories, and sports communication.
smwarren@umass.edu

Alkim Yalin

I am interested in critical theory, digital culture and film studies. My current research focuses on how the differences based on social class and identity are contested and negotiated in digital settings.
ayalin@umass.edu

Jui-Kai Yang

Critical health communication and popular culture
juikaiyang@umass.edu

Danbi Yoo

My research interests include civic media, democratic politics, digital citizenship, and the social impact of computational technology.
dyoo@comm.umass.edu

Soo oak Yoo

My interests lie in the hybridity of culture and consumer desire in terms of individual tastes and self-expression.
soooakyoo@umass.edu

Congcong Zhang

Social media, media effects, new communication technology
zhangcongcong.scu@hotmail.com