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Ph.D.
Graduate Students To see M.A. profiles, click here. To see Ph.D. and M.A. students who have recently graduated, click here. To see graduate student recruitment video, click here. To see graduate student 2008 presentations at NCA, click here. Ph.D.
profiles  Claudia AnguianoPh.D. Student 2007 Cohort  Claudia is a third-year doctoral student who obtained her B.A in communication studies with a minor in political science in 2004 from California State University, Los Angeles. She graduated with her M.A. with concentration in rhetorical studies, having received the Special Recognition in Graduate Studies Award from CSULA. Claudia has taught as a graduate T.A. for CSULA and UNM, and also as adjunct instructor at various community colleges and nonprofit organizations. She has taught nonverbal, intro to communication studies, interpersonal communication, persuasion, public speaking and oral interpretation courses. Her research interests generally combine the communicative aspect of race and law and their intersection with discourse about immigration. From an interpretive and critical perspective, she is specifically interested in discourses of immigrant Latina/o youth attending higher education. As a Mellon Fellow, she hopes to advance scholarship about Latina/o communication practices by examining the practices of immigration policy and prolematiz
Sasha is originally from Yekaterinburg, Russia, via Arkansas, where she has been living since she was 15. Sasha graduated from a small liberal arts school in Arkansas, Hendrix College, with a B.A. in international relations, global studies and German. She received her M.A. in interpersonal and organizational communication from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Sasha believes that as a Christian she is called to be an agent of positive change in the world (to serve others, to share the fruit of academic research, and to bring the light of love into each interaction). This has been manifested through Sasha's work for the Racial and Cultural Diversity Commission of the City of Little Rock on spreading diversity efforts in high schools. Sasha has also done work for a global nonprofit organization, Heifer International, in developing an orientation and adjustment program for new employees. Sasha considers herself very blessed to be a part of such strong, diverse, and supportive community as the Department of Communication and Journalism. Sasha is hoping to devote her future career to making a positive impact through consulting, program design and development, and motivational speaking. In the meantime, Sasha is talking life one moment at a time, treasuring and enjoying each breath of air. See Sasha's curriculum vitae.
Lorenda received her M.P.H. from UNM-Albuquerque with an epidemiology concentration where she gained valuable research experience and knowledge while being mentored by Drs. Nina Wallerstein, Bonnie Duran, and John Oetzel. The research methodological approach that she has been trained and mentored in is Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). She has eight years of CBPR experience with working with both Native American Pueblo and Navajo communities, first as a graduate research assistant and now as a UNM Health Sciences associate scientist II with the Center for Participatory Research in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. She works on the CBPR's Family Listening Project, a translational research project adapting an intergenerational family intervention trial that brings inquiry into culturally specific communication concepts in the model. Prior to graduate school, Lorenda served as the deputy and acting executive director of the Navajo Nation’s Environmental Protection Agency. Lorenda’s research area of interest focuses on the role of health communication strategies for translational research that involves the community as participants in a two way mutual learning situation to improve community health, particularly tribal communities of the Southwest. In 2007-08 and 2008-09 Lorenda received the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fellowship. Lorenda is adjunct faculty with the UNM Gallup Branch and has taught courses in introduction to public health.
Christopher Brown is pursuing research interests in rhetorical theory and intercultural communication. Christopher's research interests include critical race theory and whiteness studies. His favorite books are Curious George and anything written by Michel Foucault. Christopher received four outstanding teaching awards in May 2007 from the C&J Department, Rocky Mountain Communication Association, University of New Mexico, and the College of Arts and Science. In the fall semester of 2009 he is on a fellowship at Ohio State University.
Jo has an M.S. in integrated marketing communications, an MBA, and a M.A. in English. Around all those degrees, she worked in nonprofit marketing and administration. This rich background in business communication drives her interest in the real-world uses of persuasive power, particularly how that power can be used ethically and responsibly. Jo’s research interests include learning and relationship building in online environments, communicating complicated ideas, and communication history. Her dissertation looks at how the public discussion of climate change has developed over time, trying to figure out how and when the structure of public debates change. Jo currently lives and works in Oxford, England. In her non-scholarly life, she enjoys improvisational theater, punting, singing with the choir, and attempting to understand cricket. See Jo's curriculum vitae.
Santhosh is from Bangalore, India, where he obtained his M.S. in communication from Bangalore University. He worked as a journalist for five years before moving to New Mexico, where he received his M.A. in communication with a graduate certificate in American studies. Santhosh investigated the effects of the liberalization of India’s economy on the editorial policies of two Kannada newspapers in his thesis titled “Neoliberalism and the Indian Vernacular Press: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Neoliberal Discourses Among Kannada Journalists,” which drew upon his experiences as a journalist. Santhosh is interested in critical race theory, whiteness, critical theory, political economy of the media, and normative media theories. He reads (and re-reads) the adventures of Byomkesh Bakshi in his spare time and dreams of writing detective fiction some day.
Originally from Taiwan, Yea-Wen is a researcher, scholar, and practitioner of intercultural communication and relationships with the goals of promoting social justice. She has presented 19 papers in regional, national, and international communication conferences, among which four were awarded top student papers. Her research program centers on the intersections between culture, communication, and relationships with attention to issues of conflict, cultural identities, identity negotiation, and relationship building as situated in intercultural relationships. She primarily employs critical/interpretive perspectives to examine and interrogate how structural forces enable and constrain intercultural communication and relationships; at the same time, she is equipped to investigate intercultural communication and relationships from a social scientific perspective. Yea-Wen holds a B.A. in English from National Taiwan Normal University and an M.A. in communication from the University of North Texas. Before finding her way into the discipline of communication, Yea-Wen was once a high-school English teacher in Taiwan for four years. She has taught communication courses in mediation, public speaking, interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, communication for teachers, language, thought and behavior, and ITRAC at the graduate level. In May 2006 she received the Outstanding Graduate Scholar Award from the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Texas. In April 2008, she was named the Everett Rogers Doctoral Research Scholar. In 2009-2010, she was awarded the Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Scholarship from the University of New Mexico to support the completion of her dissertation. See Yea-Wen's curriculum vitae.
Originally from Albuquerque, Jaelyn deMaria earned a B.A. in journalism and mass communication from New Mexico State University (2002) with a supplementary major in law and society (NMSU’s pre-law program) and an emphasis in sociology. Jaelyn earned an M.A. from the University of New Mexico in American studies (2004) with distinction. Her thesis, titled, “Urban Homeland: An Exploration of Albuquerque’s Martineztown/Santa Barbara Community,” uses a documentary studies approach, including documentary photography, to explore methods of community organization. Jaelyn has also worked for several years as a staff photographer at the state’s largest newspaper. She is also the recipient of the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute’s Land Grant Studies Fellowship. Her research interests include intercultural communication, mass communication, ritual behavior, border studies and social organization around human rights issues. She is a documentary photojournalist and multimedia producer.
Soumia earned her M.A. in communication from the University of Madras, India, (2003) and was recognized as top student in her graduating class. She worked thereafter as lecturer at the university until 2005 teaching courses in writing for electronic media, communication and media theory, and information and communication technologies. At the University of New Mexico, her area of emphasis is intercultural/international communication. Soumia's dissertation is an effort to understand, through analysis of rhetoric in their website, what the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood stands for and how it functions as a counterpublic to the Egyptian government. More generally, her study endeavors to comment on the monolithic treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood by the West, and the potential of the Internet as a tool for counterpublic expression. She has co-authored a paper titled "Intercultural conflict from a multilevel perspective: Trends, possibilities and future directions" for the Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, and has won top paper in the Intercultural Communication Division of SSCA's 2007 convention. She is also recipient of C&J's Everett Rogers Doctoral Research Scholar Award. At UNM she teaches public speaking, media theory, intercultural communication, and mediation, and is research assistant for the Southwest Institute for Religion and Civil Society. Fluent in English, Hindi, Bengali and French, Soumia is learning Arabic, enjoys dancing and loves traveling. See Soumia's curriculum vitae.
Originally from California, Elizabeth earned a B.A. from Cal State University, San Bernardino, in organizational communication and an M.A. from New Mexico State University in intercultural communication and social change. Her research falls within two areas: environmental communication (environmental philosophy; social construction and consumption of nature; "green" media studies; ecologies of place, space and landscape) and communication and culture (consumer culture; media; critical-culture studies; gender). Elizabeth uses critical qualitative and rhetorical approaches and methods to explore how epistemologies of science, politics, economics, and environmental “knowledge” influence human-nature/human-human relationships. In addition to examining the political economy of cultural production and consumer culture, she studies consumer, economic, cultural, and political uses and interpretations of media. Elizabeth recently spent five months collecting her dissertation data at an educational state forest in North Carolina and is in the writing process. She has presented more than 20 conference papers, two of which were presented in top paper panels. She has taught in New Mexico, Florida, Beijing, and online, and worked as a teacher in Japan. Elizabeth has taught communication classes in fundamentals, public speaking, nonverbal, business and professional, conflict, persuasion, intercultural, interpersonal, service learning, and teaching the basic course. In 2009, Elizabeth was named an Everett Rogers Doctoral Research Scholar, and in 2008 she received the UNM Susan Deese-Roberts Outstanding University TA Award. See Elizabeth’s CV on her homepage www.unm.edu/~edickins.
Haibin graduated with a B.A.in English literature from Northwest University located in Xi'an Shaanxi, China, which is also his hometown and birthplace. Haibin received his M.A. in international management from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. Currently, he is working on a project visualizing the complexity of cultural identity and identification process by a metaphorical model. Haibin believes in common sense, which constitute culture, reinforce ideology, inform sciences, and vary in directions, styles, forms, and appearances. Haibin hopes that his study of visual phenomenon in culture and communication will provide a path toward the revelation of the connection between common sense and scientific knowledge.
Eudaline is originally from Yaounde, Cameroon. Prior to her studies in the doctoral program at UNM, she received her B.A. from Henderson State University and her M.S. in communication from Illinois State University. Patricia's current research interests are in intercultural and health communication. She is particularly interested in patient and health care provider communication and the influence of culture during the communication process. Besides her research interest, Patricia has worked as a public speaking instructor at Illinois State University, and she is now teaching small group communication at UNM. During her free time, Patricia likes to research the use of faith and the patients' physical, emotional and spiritual outcomes.
No biography available.
Sara comes to UNM from Dallas, Texas. She earned her B.A. in 2002 at the University of North Texas, with a double major in French and communication and completed an M.A. in communication studies in 2007. Sara's research interests focus on media and the intersection of race, ethnicity and gender, particularly the construction and communication of identity through media discourses. She has presented academic research at student, regional and national conferences on identity representation in media texts, including reality-based programming and the 2008 presidential elections. She is scheduled to present scholarship on the treatment of identity in children's television programming and media representations of gendered identity in the 2008 presidential elections at NCA in November 2009. She has taught public speaking, media theories, and introduction to mass communication, and she will teach intercultural communication in spring 2010. See Sara’s curriculum vitae.
Willow is a native of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. She holds a B.A. in political science and history from Mount Allison University and, thanks to a Rotary International Paul P. Harris Ambassadorial scholarship, was able to pursue her M.A. in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford, England, in 1999. Willow served as a delegate of the Japanese government-run program Ship for World Youth in 1997 and later returned to Japan leading the Canadian delegation to the 21st Century Renaissance Youth Leaders Invitation Program in 2003. Willow’s research interests include intercultural communication, conflict resolution, and immigration and settlement issues. In her spare time she loves cooking, berry picking, hiking, exploring food and craft markets and quilting. See Willow’s curriculum vitae.
Holly holds an MBA-International with emphasis on intercultural management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. Holly's career of more than 20 years in intercultural communication in Japan has been in the three areas of university teaching, corporate training, and consulting for both the private and public sectors. Her research interests include Japan-U.S. communication, bridging high and low context communication styles through kinetic communication, cultural exchange and fusion, diffusion of innovations, communication and team cohesion, identity of the stranger,cultural appropriation. Examples of numerous conference papers and workshops include Explication of the Zia Sun Symbol, Diffusion of Xeriscaping in Albuquerque, and Criteria of Highly Performing Teams. She also has a list of publications with the most recent being "Kinetic Facilitation Techniques for Promoting Relationships Among Members of Diverse Groups" as a chapter in Innovative Facilitation with Natural Groups (2006). Holly's dissertation topic is about the history and development of the intercultural communication discipline in Japan from 1955 to the present, based on both her career spanning major development years in Japan and her access to major scholars. Her teaching career began in 1984; most recently she taught the communication component within the master's program of water resource management. A qualified mediator, Holly has taught mediation in C&J and the first-ever 40-hour foundation training for graduate students. Holly also created and taught the first course on communication styles of Native America.
Mercedes received her B.A. in journalism and mass communication with an emphasis in advertising from the University of New Mexico in 2003. She went on to pursue an M.S. degree in health education from Utah State University. Before continuing her studies at UNM, Mercedes worked as an academic adviser and adjunct faculty at Utah Valley University. Mercedes' research interests are in health communication, in particular the relationship between media and body image.
Lissa received her M.P.H. from CSU-Northridge with an emphasis in health education. She focuses on health communication and her policy areas of interest include decreasing health disparities, specifically for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds and who have been diagnosed with severe mental illness. Lissa has more than 10 years of community health instruction experience and has been involved in public health advocacy for the last four years. In 2007 Lissa drafted and successfully lobbied for legislation, mandating that employers provide a private clean space and flexible break times for their employee-mothers to use a breast pump. This legislation is expected to improve breastfeeding rates across the state and have tremendous impact on the health of New Mexico's children. In the area of mental illness stigma reduction, Lissa examines how mental illness stigma is enacted in discourse and how disclosure of treatment history can act as a stigma reduction strategy. She is working on projects that examine how police officers construct severe mental illness, applying agenda-setting theory to newspaper representations of mental illness, conducting rhetorical analyses of arguments against lactation spaces in academic settings, and assessing relationships between infant nutrition choices and women's voices. In 2007 Lissa received the University of New Mexico Volunteer Service Award and the American Public Health Association's inaugural Trong Ngyuen Health Policy Scholarship. She is also a recipient of the California State University Chancellor's Doctoral Incentive Program. Lissa is an instructor for the combined UNM BA/MD Program and the UNM Research Service Learning Program . She has experience teaching intercultural communication, small group communication, public speaking, business and professional speaking, and public health program planning. She also enjoys watching independent movies, participating in community service projects, going to local farmers markets and co-parenting her nearly 3-year-old daughter. See Lissa's curriculum vitae.
Brandi earned her B.A. in communication studies from California State University, Northridge, in 2007 where she competed nationally for the forensics speech and debate team. Upon graduation, Brandi was named the 2007 Outstanding Communicator, Richard B. Aronstam Outstanding Undergraduate, and Outstanding Graduating Senior. She continued her education at San Francisco State University where she received her M.A. in communication studies in 2009. There, she taught fundamentals of oral communication and served as the assistant coach for the forensics speech and debate team. Her master's thesis, "Moving up in class? A study on college students' transition to academia," focused on lower- and working-class students transitioning into a middle-class academic setting. In 2009 Brandi was granted the Graduate Equity Fellowship and named the Communication Studies Department's Outstanding Graduate Student of Distinguished Achievement. She has presented papers at the National Communication Association (NCA) and Western States Communication Association (WSCA) annual conventions. Her research interests include rhetoric, social justice, social class, critical and cultural studies, and critical pedagogy. See Brandi's curriculum vitae.
Marianne holds an M.A. in international and intercultural communication from the University of Denver and a B.A. in Spanish and international studies from Santa Clara University. Her research focuses on the impact of new communication technologies at both the individual and social levels. Specifically, she is interested in how people use the Internet to inform their communicative interactions and how those ways of knowing and ways of being (culture) change in a virtual space. Her book chapter (with E. Hudson) titled "Culture, Organization, and Contradiction in the Social Construction of Technology: Adoption and Use of the Cell Phone Across Three Cultures" is part of the edited volume The Cell Phone: History, Technology, Culture. Currently, she is working on two pieces for publication: (1) organizational role stereotypes, and (2) the narrative performance of an online self. Additionally, Marianne helped to complete a study on the effectiveness of an education program entitled "Journeys in Film." She has presented papers at numerous national and regional conferences. In addition to teaching intercultural communication, public speaking, language, thought, and behavior, a graduate course in teaching the basics, and nonverbal communication and persuasive communication at UNM, Marianne also taught both upper and lower division courses in computer-mediated communication at Portland State University and online. See Marianne's curriculum vitae.
Rachel is originally from Los Angeles, Calif. She earned her B.A. with a double major in communication studies and women's studies from California State University, Northridge, where she continued on to earn her M.A. in communication studies in 2008. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in intercultural communication and a graduate certificate in women's studies. Her research focuses on critical, feminist, queer and postcolonial examinations of intercultural contestations. Before starting at UNM, Rachel briefly attended Arizona State University, where she was recognized as an outstanding teacher, earning the Graduate and Professional Student Association's "Teaching Excellence Award" in 2009. Rachel's current projects involve theorizing subaltern agentic responses to the rather abstract process of corporate neo-imperialism in rural India, unpacking the rhetoric of white queer outrage after the November 2008 election, and the rhetoric of U.S. exceptionalism embedded in the discourse surrounding both the Statue of Liberty and queer asylum seekers. Rachel has presented her work at various national and regional conferences, including the National Communication Association conference, the Organization for the Study of Communication Language and Gender, the National Women's Studies Association conference, and the Western States Communication Association conference, among others.
Carmen is originally from Pilot Oak, Ky. She earned her M.A. in communication from UNM in 2000. Since that time, she has been engaged in human rights work in Sudan, East Timor, China, Indonesia, and Burma. In her doctoral program, Carmen is exploring research methodologies to identify methods that preserve the integrity of experience, co-create knowledge, and provide generative opportunities for people – especially children – who experience traumatic and life-threatening situations. In particular, her research interests focus on constructs of home among people who are displaced, whether due to family violence, state-sponsored conflict, or imprisonment. Carmen thoroughly enjoys being back in New Mexico and camping and hiking with her husband and dog.
No biography available.
Satoshi Moriizumi is originally from Nagano, Japan. He obtained his M.A. in English language education from Nanzan University in 1997, and in social psychology from Nagoya University in 2006. Before joining the doctoral program at UNM, he was teaching English communication and intercultural communication courses in the English Department in Nanzan Junior College in Nagoya, Japan for seven years. His research interests include interpersonal and intercultural communication in general and interpersonal conflict management styles across cultures in particular. He has presented his reseach at various communication associations, including NCA and WSCA, and social psychology associations. He has published his research on Japanese conflict styles in journals such as Journal of Social Psychology, Intercultural Communication Studies, and Human Communication Studies.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Anjana attended college in Bangalore, India, graduating with a BA.LLB. (Bachelor of Arts and Law) from the National Law School of India. She then returned to the U.S. and earned an M.A. in communication studies from Ohio University. Before joining the Ph.D. program at New Mexico, she worked as a legal coordinator for a software company, coordinating immigration for foreign national employees. She also taught a course in race, ethnicity and communication at the University of Houston-Downtown, a nontraditional urban campus. Her research interests include intercultural communication, multicultural identity construction, and whiteness, including in the context of higher education. She has presented papers at the National Communication Association (NCA) Conference and at the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG) Conference.
Consolata received her B.A. in linguistics in 2002 from Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya. In 2007, she graduated with an M.A. in organizational communication from Kean University in Union, N.J. Her research interests are focused on intercultural communication, migration and gender. She has taught public speaking at Kean, and interviewing and communicating in organizations at UNM. See Consolata's curriculum vitae.
Jessica originally hails from the Chicago area. She attended Eastern Illinois University and received her B.A. in speech communication with a minor in health communication. Jessica continued her studies at Eastern Illinois University and completed her M.A. in communication studies. Jessica was the first student to pioneer the Community College Pedagogy Option, an innovation program designed by the communication department to provide a concentration on pedagogical techniques and an internship at a community college. During her final year in the M.A. program, Jessica was chosen as the Distinguished Graduate Student in Communication Studies. After teaching at multiple community colleges in the Chicago area, Jessica was hired as a full-time instructor at Bowling Green State University. In addition to her teaching experience in public speaking, Jessica has had the opportunity to teach human communication, interpersonal communication, leadership and communication, and communication and conflict. She also served as the interim basic course director at Bowling Green State University. At UNM, she is teaching communication in organizations. Jessica is interested in studying and researching gender, race, and ethnicity from a critical perspective. She has presented papers related to these issues at the National Communication Association, the Eastern Communication Association, and the Central States Communication Association. See Jessica's curriculum vitae.
Hannah graduated with an M.A. in management from Hamline University in 2005. Before beginning her doctoral studies at UNM, Hannah was employed as the director of multicultural affairs at Inver Hills Community College in Minnesota. She has consulted on diversity issues and the recruitment and retention of students of color in higher education. Between 2002-2004, Hannah served as a program coordinator in an urban immersion retreat program, producing educational programs on issues of urban poverty, equity, and social justice. Hannah was named an Associated Colleges of the Midwest Scholar in the summer of 2001, allowing her to conduct research on West African immigration. Her research interests center on issues of power, diversity and education and post-colonialism. See her curriculum vitae.
No biography available.
Jelena came to the United States from Belgrade, Serbia, where she started her undergraduate studies at Belgrade University's School for Political Sciences. It is her belief that growing up in Belgrade, where she witnessed and was directly influenced by the ongoing political turmoil in her country, is the main reason she is committed to the study of mass communication and its role in a particular environment. After two years of attending the university in Belgrade, Jelena, who was also an athlete, continued her studies at Wichita State University, Kansas, on a track and field scholarship. At that university, she earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in communication. In 2009, she received the Snowy Owl and the Outstanding GTA awards from the WSU Elliott School of Communication. Before entering the M.A. program, Jelena interned at a Kansas newspaper, the Wichita Eagle. This experience directed her current research interests toward news cybergenres – their future and relationships with the traditional media, their audience and the society in which they develop.
Alexis is originally from Manitou Springs, Colo. After spending one year at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., he moved back to Fort Collins, Colo. He graduated from Colorado State University with his B.A. in speech communication and his M.A. in communication studies. His degrees focused on digital media, virtual cultures, postmodern narratives and feminist studies. His research interests focus on how media are being utilized today and what potential arises from the new uses of this media. As a philosophy, Alexis spends his time outside academics participating in every outdoor sport he can involve himself in, and he is excited to snowboard and golf in the same day.
After receiving a graduate degree in law from Bonn University, Germany, Tatjana worked at the Appellate Court in Berlin where she specialized in criminal law. As a certified legal and economic translator and interpreter, Tatjana legally assisted foreign visitors to Germany in German, English, French, Italian, and Dutch. After relocating to Italy, she worked for a legal firm and a multinational corporation, specializing in law specific to the European Union. Tatjana received her B.A. cum laude from the University of New Mexico in 2006, double-majoring in mass communication/journalism and sociology. She taught public speaking and Freshman Learning Community and was named “Outstanding Master’s Student 2007” and class valedictorian. She was one of two researchers contracted in 2008 to evaluate a nonprofit organization's safe driving program in Albuquerque high schools. Tatjana is fascinated by intercultural communication and, in particular, by the acculturation strategies of “globalized elites,” a topic she explored in her 2008 master’s thesis, passed with distinction. She is also interested in mass media/organizational communication because of her full-time work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Tatjana has presented at National Communication Association conferences, on women’s rights at UNM’s 2009 Civil Rights Symposium, and at the 2009 Western Social Science Association conference, where she was awarded Top Graduate Paper. In her spare time, she is a wildland firefighter, musher, artist, biker, and docent of New Mexico history.
Iliana is originally from San Diego, Calif. She holds a B.A. in communication studies and African-American studies from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Iliana attended DePaul University in Chicago, where she received an M.A. in multicultural communication. While at DePaul, she taught intercultural communication and worked at the campus office for students with learning disabilities and ADHD. Iliana's academic interests include intercultural communication, the relationship between language and culture, as well as cultural identity. She often focuses her research on hybridity,mixed-race identity, and multicultural media representations in popular culture. She has presented at ICA, NCA, as well as other national and regional conferences. Iliana has taught interviewing, intercultural, language, thought and behavior, and nonverbal communication courses.
Jennifer is a native Californian who most recently lived in Los Angeles after completing a Master's of Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law in 2003. For several years she worked for the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution as well as Pepperdine's Seaver College, where she taught courses in intercultural communication, conflict, international negotiation and interpersonal communication. She continues an association with a small communication consulting firm based in the L.A. area and contributes to work in executive coaching and development of new training material and workshops. Jennifer's primary research interests include the intersection of cultures, public policy and the body from a critical framework. She is currently engaged in research looking at transnational surrogacy in India and the United States. Jennifer hopes to continue to create work based in effective interdisciplinary research that can be applied to real-world problems and bring about positive change in a variety of communities. See Jennifer's curriculum vitae.
Sachi Sekimoto is pursuing her Ph.D. in intercultural communication with an emphasis on critical theory and cultural studies. Her research interests include globalization, nationalism and postcolonialism. She uses poststructural and postmodern perspectives in her theoretical and methodological approach. She received International Communication Association Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in 2008. She teaches various communication and other interdisciplinary courses including intercultural communication, women's studies, and public speaking.
Divya graduated with an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri and has a B.A. in English from Madras University, India. Her current research interests are influenced by her professional experience in developing advertising and public relations campaigns in India, and her personal interest in reducing health disparities. Working as a research assistant at The Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions, she is currently examining culture-specific barriers to addictions treatment experienced by select Native Americans. Her dissertation will examine the family-environmental determinants of children's fruit and vegetable consumption in Hispanic family households. She has also conducted focus groups and narrative analysis of entertainment-education (E-E) films to understand the mechanisms by which E-E narratives have their effects. She seeks to further her research goal of identifying causes of health disparities for individuals, families and communities, and to develop and implement health communication interventions to reduce these disparities. She has taught intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, public speaking, and cross-cultural journalism.
Judith Stauber received a B.S. in communication with an emphasis on organization and visual communication from Ithaca College, and an M.A in women's studies with an emphasis on visual communication from Ohio State University. Judith taught a course entitled "Communication in Culturally Diverse Organizations" for three years at Ithaca College. Current doctoral study at UNM is focused on intercultural and visual communication. Her research is in the area of intercultural communication and explores concepts of identity, community, cultural geography, travel, and narrative. Judith has traveled extensively around the world, photographing Jewish communities and facilitating university-based cultural travel programs. Judith developed and led a Jewish social justice service, learning leadership experience in Havana, Cuba, and has led numerous trips to Israel for university students and young professionals through her professional association with Hillel the Foundation or Jewish Campus Life. Over the past decade, Judith has worked in campus life as a Hillel staff professional at Cornell University, Syracuse University, and SUNY Buffalo. Judith is executive director of Hillel at UNM.
Chie received her M.A. in communication studies from Seinan Gakuin University in Japan in 2005. While completing her M.A., Chie worked closely with Dr. Tadasu Imahori in areas of intercultural communication and identity management. Her thesis was titled "Rule Convergence Regarding Conflict Resolution in Intracultural and Intercultural Romantic Couples in Japan." Chie's primary research interests include intercultural communication, cultural identities, construction of race-related ideologies in discourses, and interracial/interethnic relationships. She has presented five conference papers, including "Intercultural romantic relationships: Dialectical approach." (WSCA, 2007) and "Negotiating the 'Real' in cyber space: An analysis of the underlying dynamics of Zainichi Korean and Japanese online discourses " (ICA 2007). Chie received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2005.
Bhavana is finishing up interdisciplinary research in the areas of identity, communication, gender, culture and spirituality. Her focus is on the women in the transnational Amma community and the ways in which spirituality may facilitate communication across differences. She approaches the issue of social justice and change from a transmodern perspective and borrows heavily from various spiritual traditions and indigenous knowledges. In her other activities, Bhavana is commited to the principle of being a public intellectual and is involved in social activism on many fronts. In her teaching, she works with the Research Service Learning Program in developing service-learning curriculum, and she has taught several courses in conjunction with different neighborhoods and community organizations around the campus. She has worked closely the East Indian community, graduate students of color, and Asian family center. In her leisure time, she enjoys hiking, world music, and ancient dance forms. See Bhavana's curriculum vitae.
Lynn is originally from Los Angeles, Calif., but has been a New Mexico resident since 1980. She received her B.F.A. from Cooper Union and her M.S. in health education from the University of New Mexico in 2003. Lynn Walters' primary area of study is health education, with a focus on prevention research, and keen interests in nonverbal communication, experiential pedagogy, and program evaluation. Lynn is founder and executive director of an experiential food and nutrition education program that engages elementary school students in hands-on learning with fresh affordable foods from diverse cultures. She is co-project director for a four-year research and extension project funded by USDA in 2006: "Cooking with Kids: Integrating Classroom, Cafeteria and Family Experiences." Her program website is at www.cookingwithkids.net.
Olga received a B.A. in communication studies from CSU, Stanislaus, and an M.A. from San Francisco State. Olga's research interests focus on cultural mechanisms of normalization and non-violent methods of resistance. Using a variety of qualitative methods, she investigates how culture affects what people consider normal, acceptable, or desirable (especially in relation to gender and sexuality) and how, at specific sociocultural conjunctures, those ideological prescriptions do not become articulated. Due to her cultural heritage, Olga concentrates predominantly on Russia. Olga's previous research projects include studies on perceptions of Russian women on feminism; Russian masculinities; (re)construction of (homo)sexuality in the country; analysis of the intersection of gender, nationality, and social class in articulations of identities of Russian elite women; female sex tourism; patterns of production and distribution of social and cultural knowledge in the media; cultural pedagogy; and diasporic communities. Many of these studies were presented at regional, national, and international conferences. Olga is also interested in critical and feminist pedagogy.
Abdissa is originally from Ethiopia. Prior to joining UNM as a doctoral student, he completed an M.A. in TESOL at the University of Stirling in the U.K. He also earned an M.A. in communication at Eastern Illinois University. While in Ethiopia, he taught English as a second language courses at the Awassa College of Agriculture, and later at Debub University. He also served as a department chair and faculty dean at Debub University. Here at UNM, he has taught public speaking and Freshman Learning Community classes. His area of study includes mass communication and intercultural communication, and his research interests include media representation, and the intersection between media, civil society and democracy, and issues related to global media. He chose UNM because of its unparalleled diversity, Albuquerque's beautiful weather and the area's majestic landscape. In his spare time, he likes reading reading and reflecting. Upon the completion of his study, Abdissa intends to hold a faculty position or work in organizations such as the UN and OU. |
Jessica
Nodulman
Divya
Sreenivas
Judith
Stauber 
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