Check out our final COMM Updates for the 2023–2024 academic year—and what a year it’s been! We’ll be back in fall 2024.
Awards
Congratulations to our graduate student award winners!
The Outstanding CALS Graduate Teaching Assistant recognizes graduate TAs who have made an important contribution to the instructional program of the College.
Rosie Nguyen
Ellie Homant
The Glass Family Fellowship, established in honor of Dr. Royal Colle, esteemed emeritus professor in the Department of Communication, recognizes graduate students who exemplify leadership and service to the Department, Field, and Cornell University.
Ria Gualano
The Anson E. Rowe Award recognizes promising graduate students (pre-A Exam) and advanced graduate students (post-A Exam), who have proven research productivity, teaching excellence, and have made a contribution to the communication community.
Rebekah Wicke (promising)
Colten Meisner (advanced)
Pengfei Zhao (advanced)
And a hearty congratulations to our undergraduate student award winners!
The Edward L. Bernays Award recognizes students who demonstrate outstanding achievement and participation in Public Relations.
Adele Williams
The Kenneth J. Bissett Award is given to students with the best portfolio of design and written material.
Olivia Holloway
The Chester Freeman Award recognizes juniors who best exhibit the interdisciplinary character of the department.
Kimmie Jimenez
The Anson H. Rowe Awards are given to juniors and seniors majoring in Communication, with preference given to students specializing in interpersonal communication, public speaking, radio, or television.
Junior: Georgina Gonzalez
Senior: Claire Cocking
The Alfred N. Schwartz Award promotes excellence in agricultural journalism.
Jake Zajkowski
The Sheila Turner Seed Award is given to junior women majoring in communication.
Amber Arquilevich
Farewell
During our end-of-year party, we feted Senior Lecturer Lauren Chambliss who is retiring this year. Lauren joined the Department of Communication faculty in 2012. In 2016, she took over the writing for communication program, and, in this capacity, has taught more than 1000 students. One of her most notable achievements was developing the college’s first experiential writing course, a 10-day intensive writing and cultural immersion program that takes place in Mexico. From 2011 to 2016, she served as communications director of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Lauren began her career as a columnist, reporter, writer, and editor for leading U.S. newspapers, magazines, and international publications, including serving as the U.S. economic correspondent for London’s paper, The Evening Standard. We’re so very sad to see her go but wish her all the best! See pictures below.
Grants
Graduate student Beatrys Rodrigues received a $1000 Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute Small Research Grant awarded by the Cornell Center for Social Sciences. The grant will support her dissertation project, tentatively titled “Networked Misogyny: Intersectional Feminisms and Anti-colonial Resistance in Platform Economies.”
Jobs
What a year for our graduate students, lecturers, and research staff!
Angel Hsing-Chi Hwang Ph.D. ’23 accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at the University of Southern California.
Lecturer Cat Lambert Ph.D. ’23 has accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in science communication at Northeastern University in Boston. She is joining the Department of Communication in the College of Arts, Media, and Design.
Postdoctoral Associate Joel LeForestier has accepted a tenure-track position in the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Psychology.
Graduate student Aly Leong accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Communications & New Media at the National University of Singapore.
Research Associate Jiawei Liu accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor at the University of Florida.
Graduate student Colten Meisner accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor at North Carolina University.
Postdoctoral Associate Fanghui Xiao has accepted a full-time position as the Learning Experience Design developer for the Deception Awareness and Resilience Training Collective.
Publications
Adjunct Associate Professor Tarleton Gillespie, May 2024, “Generative AI and the Politics of Visibility,” Big Data & Society. Proponents of generative AI tools claim they will supplement, even replace, the work of cultural production. This raises questions about the politics of visibility: what kinds of stories do these tools tend to generate, and what do they generally not? Do these tools match the kind of diversity of representation that marginalized populations and non-normative communities have fought to secure in publishing and broadcast media?
Associate Professor Neil Lewis, Jr., May 2024, “Universities Are Palaces for the People. Their Leaders Should Remember That,” The Brookings Institution. Drawing on research on community-engaged scholarship, this article argues that universities (and leaders) could help to rebuild confidence in higher education if they spent more time engaging with the broader publics that institutions of higher education are meant to serve.
Lecturer Jamal Uddin (with W. Sun), “Preventive Health Practices and Stress Management among Bangladeshi Immigrants during COVID-19: A Culture-Centered Approach,” Howard Journal of Communication. This article is addresses preventive health practices and stress management among the Bangladeshi low-income community in the USA during COVID-19. The study, designed following focused ethnography, explored the ethnic group's major preventive health practices and stress management processes during the health emergency.
