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