Ph.D. Degree-Holders

Name: Jaime Chavez, Ph.D.
Graduation Date: Spring 2007
Dissertation Title: “I Laughed Until it Hurt: Representing Culture and Cultural Identity in the Media: A Discursive Exploration of Humorous Latino Popular Culture Artifacts.”

Name: Melissa Curtin, Ph.D.
E-mail: mlcurtin@siu.edu
Graduation Date: December 2007
Dissertation Title: “Language Ideologies on Display: Local, Regional & (Trans)National Identities in Taipei’s Linguistic Landscape.”
Bio: Melissa is an assistant professor in the Department of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University- Carbondale. Her areas of emphasis are intercultural communication, language and identity, cultural adaptation/coculturation, ethnography, critical discourse analysis, social semiotics. Please click here for Melissa’s CV.

Name: Ashley Grisso, Ph.D.
E-mail: ashvoice@earthlink.net
Graduation Date: Summer 2007
Dissertation Title: “Ritualized Media Use Among Middle-School-aged Girls: Forming and Informing Female Identity.”
Bio: Ashley works as adjunct faculty in the Women Studies Program and C&J Department at UNM. She is starting a business in Santa Fe that will offer programs and workshops for girls and women who are moving from one life phase to another. She is also pursuing opportunities to take college students abroad. Her academic pursuits include functioning as an independent scholar to further explore gender. Specifically, how gender is defined/explained and actualized outside of the academy.

Name: Anchalee Ngampornchai, Ph.D.
Graduation Date: Spring 2007

Name: Matthew Petrunia, Ph.D.
E-mail: matthew_petrunia@fitnyc.edu
Graduation Date: September 2007
Dissertation Title: “The Search for Generic Possibility in Supernatural Discourse: Creating Space for Believers in a Skeptical World.”
Bio: Matthew is on the faculty at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Please click here for Matt's CV.

Name: Ruben Ramirez, Ph.D.
Graduation Date: Spring 2007
Dissertation Title: “Capitalism, Independent Media Making, and Articulation : A Case Study of the Puerto Rico Underground.”

Name: Elizabeth Root, Ph.D.
Graduation Date: May 2007.
Dissertation Title: “How the ideology of English influences classroom interactions in South Korea: Insights from personal narratives.”
Bio: Elizabeth is employed at the University of Oregon in the American English Institute. Her future research interests are to continue to examine and explore the intersections between intercultural communication, instructional communication, and second/foreign language education.

M.A. Degree-Holders

Name: Thomas Damp, M.A.
E-mail: tdamp@cnm.edu
Graduation Date: December 2006
Thesis Title: “Exploring the Role of Communication and Identity Negotiation among Chinese Students at an American University.”
Bio: Tom is teaching communication courses at CNM Community College in Albuquerque and part time at UNM.

Name: Nicole Guillespie, M.A.
Graduation Date: Spring 2007

Name: Myra Luna Lucero, M.A.
E-mail: myraluna@unm.edu
Graduation Date: December 2007
Thesis Title: “Community Social Movement Rhetoric: ‘Unidad’ and ‘Poder’ in Letter Writing.”

Name: Benjamin Mabe, M.A.
E-mail: bmabe@unm.edu
Graduation Date: 2007
Thesis Title: “Media Culture and the Construction of Relationship ‘Prizes’ in Reality TV Romance Games: A Critical Discourse Analysis”
Bio: Ben is a Ph.D. Student in the Communication and Journalism Department at UNM.

Name: Loretta Salazar, M.A.
Graduation Date: Fall 2007 .