Graduate Student Honors

• Go to Prospective Graduate Student Query Form
• Go to The Graduate Student Handbook
• Go to Graduate Program Video
• Go to C&J Graduate Links/Overview
• Go to Recent Graduates of the Program
• Go to Current M.A. student profiles
• Go to Current Ph.D. student profiles

Top Papers at 2011 Western States Communication Association conference in Monterey, Calif.:
      Ph.D. student Willow J. Anderson’s paper, “Drum in the House: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Canadian Government’s Apology for Residential Schools and the Public’s Response,” earned a top paper, the top student paper award, and the Top Rhetoric and Public Address Paper Award from the Rhetoric and Public Address division.
      Ph.D. candidate Claudia Anguiano and 2010 Ph.D. graduate Elizabeth Dickenson each earned top papers in the Environmental Communication division – Claudia for her first-authored piece with faculty member Tema Milstein and three Ph.D. students using a Latina/o critical theory approach to study Hispanic environmental meaning systems, and Elizabeth for her paper using critical ethnographic approaches to examine forest environmental education.
      Ph.D. candidate Sachi Sekimoto and Ph.D. student Anjana Mudambi earned top student papers in the Intercultural Communication interest group. Sachi's paper was titled "Theorizing identity in the globalized world: Toward a multimodal approach." Anjana's paper was titled "Another look at Orientalism: (An)Othering in Slumdog Millionaire."

Top Papers at 2010 National Communication Association conference in San Francisco, Calif.: Ph.D. students who earned top papers at NCA included Brandi Lawless (top student paper in Critical and Cultural Studies division for paper titled “Commies, aliens, and Nazis, oh my! Framing fear in the health care debate; top 10 paper in Great Ideas For Teaching Speech division for paper titled “Cleaning up your room to clean up communication: Using MTV’s Room Raiders to teach nonverbal communication”) and Lex Pulos (top paper in the GLBTQ division for paper titled “Social justice and the digital: A critical discourse analysis of GLBT sexuality in World of Warcraft”).

Top Papers at 2010 Western States Communication Association conference in Anchorage, Alaska: Ph.D. student Anjana Mudambi earned a top paper in the Intercultural Communication interest group for a paper second-authored with faculty member Mary Jane Collier titled "'Still not American enough for ya?': Decolonizing blog discourse on immigration." Ph.D. student Sara Holmes earned a top paper for “Transportation through visual media: A visual media model of narrative transportation.”

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Doctoral Fellow: Ph.D. candidate Claudia Anguiano received the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Doctoral Fellowship in Social and Humanistic Studies at UNM to support her dissertation research for two years (2009-2011) to advance scholarship focusing on the historic and cultural dimensions of Latina/o communities.

Recent employment, publication, and honors:
      Ph.D. candidate Sachi Sekimoto started an assistant professor position at Minnesota State University, Mankato, in fall 2010, and has a book chapter in press, "Materiality of the self: Toward a re-conceptualization of identity in communication," in T. Kuhn (Ed.) Matters of communication/Matters of engagement. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.
      Ph.D. student Santhosh Chandrashekar earned the Phillip G. Davis Graduate Student Paper Award at the 2009 National Association for Ethnic Studies conference.
      Ph.D. student Audrey Riffenburgh’s consulting firm, Plain Language Works, LLC, received 10 awards for outstanding and excellent documents in the National Institutes of Health Plain Language competition in 2005 through 2008; Audrey also is contributing author and editor for Plain Language Pediatrics: Health Literacy Strategies and Communication Resources for Common Pediatric Topics, Abrams, MA & Dreyer, BP (Eds.), American Academy of Pediatrics, Elk Grove Village, IL.
      Laura Burton’s (M.A., 2009) research abstract was selected for oral presentation at the 2010 Centers for Disease Control National Conference on Health Communication, Media and Marketing.
      Ph.D. student Lissa Knudsen was awarded the 2007 Trong D. Nguyen Memorial Award for Student Leadership by the Student Assembly of the American Public Health Association for her advocacy efforts through the New Mexico Breast Feeding Task Force, which led to the Southwest region’s first law on breast pump use in the workplace, providing women with a clean, private space to breast pump at work and ensuring that their employers provide flexible break times to accommodate their needs.

Recent UNM, College of Arts and Sciences, and C&J Departmental Awards:
      Ph.D. candidate Iliana Rucker De Larkin earned the 2010 ICA Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award from the C&J department as well as the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Associate Award.
      Rucker De Larkin also received the UNM Alumni Association’s 2009-2010 Albuquerque Branch AAUW Graduate Women Scholarship.
      Ph.D. student Jessica Nodulman and M.A. student Marleah Dean earned 2010 C&J Teaching Assistant Awards.
      Yea Wen Chen was named 2010 C&J Outstanding Doctoral Student while Liesel Sharabi was named Outstanding Master’s Student.
      2010 Everett Rogers research scholars are graduate students Sara Holmes, Jennifer Sandoval, Claudia Anguiano, and Brandi Lawless.

Faculty member and Ph.D. student earn mentor awards: A C&J faculty member and graduate student have both won 2010 mentor awards through UNM's Office Of Graduate Studies. Dr. Karen Foss received the Faculty Mentor Award and Ph.D. candidate Elizabeth Dickinson was the recipient of the Graduate Student Mentor Award. The awards honor an outstanding faculty member and graduate student who have provided excellence in mentoring graduate students.

Top Papers at 2008 National Communication Association conference in San Diego, CA: C&J graduate students who presented top papers included Ph.D. students Yea Wen Chen (top student paper in International and Intercultural Communication Division for her paper "The Influences of Culture on Self-disclosure as Relationally Situated in Intercultural and Interracial Friendships from a Social Penetration Perspective"); Elizabeth Dickenson (top paper in Environmental Communication division for her paper "Nature and the Simulacrum: Reconstruction, Commodification, and Contestation of Sacred Space in The Petroglyphs"); and Courtney Fletcher (top paper in Visual Communication division for her video documentary "Zero Circle: An Auto-Ethnographic Documentary about the Becoming of Graduate Student").

Top Papers at 2008 Western States Communication Association conference in Denver, CO: Ph.D. student Elizabeth Dickinson received the Top Student Paper Award from the Theory division (paper title: “New directions in action based environmental theorizing: Emerging perspectives on the natural world, communication, and social change”).