Sohinee Bera

she/her

Graduate Student, Department of Communication

About

Sohinee Bera is a PhD Candidate in the graduate field of Communication at Cornell University. Broadly, she studies health, risk, and environmental communication, at the intersection of well-being and inequity. Her dissertation investigates how female community health workers navigate national health policies and reporting systems, and how data-driven practices influence rural health care in India.

At Cornell, Sohinee has served as a summer instructor for COMM 2850 (Communication, Environment, Science, and Health) and as a graduate teaching assistant for COMM 2850 and COMM 2450 (Communication and Technology).

Previously, Sohinee was an English Teaching Assistant through the U.S. Fulbright Program, where she fostered community and inclusion at a German secondary school with a significant number of students from refugee and migrant backgrounds. She also has a breadth of experience in conservation and ecological restoration, with past appointments on the Visitor Damage Mitigation Team at Joshua Tree National Park and with the American Conservation Corps.

Education

B.Sc. Agricultural Communication, Purdue University, 2020
M.S. Communication, Cornell University, 2025

Interests

Culture-centered approaches, data infrastructures, community health interventions, social construction of risk

Awards & Honors

CSSS Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute Small Research Grant (2025)
The Waterhouse Family Institute Research Grant (2025)
Founder’s Excellence Fellowship, Cornell University Graduate School (2025)
FLAS Fellowship, Cornell University South Asia Program (2025)
Community Access & Outreach Award for Impact on Communities Beyond Cornell, Graduate School Office of Inclusion & Student Engagement, joint award for Graduate Student School Outreach Program (GRASSHOPR) (2025)
Visiting Scholar, Joshua Tree National Park, 2024
Fulbright Grantee, 2021-2022, Germany English Teaching Assistant
Cornell Fellowship, 2022
Graduate School Dean's Scholars

Courses Taught

COMM 2950/STS 2851 Communication, Environment, Science, and Health (Summer 2023 and 2025)

Contact Information

sb928 [at] cornell.edu

Conferences

Bera, S., (2026, June) Infrastructure, Voice, Inequality: The Communicative Politics of Community Health Work in Rural India. International Communication Association. Capetown, South Africa.
Bera, S., Gruber A., Benevento, S, V., Li, C., Salazar De Leon, C., Moose, S, P., Bigman-Galimore, C., Lewenstein, B, V. Who sees what in programmable plants? Public imaginaries of emerging agriculture biotechnologies. International Communication Association. Capetown, South Africa.
Bera, S., Gruber, A., Salazar de Leon, C., (2025, November). When fast technologies meet Slow Foods: Diverse visions of emerging plant biotechnologies. National Communication Association. Denver, CO
Bera, S., (2025, May). Inclusive Public Engagement with Migrant Farmworkers: Criteria and Challenges. Public Communication of Science and Technology Network. Aberdeen, Scotland.
Bera, S., Salazar De Leon, C. (2024, December). Voices from the Fields: Migrant Farmworker’s Perspectives on Emerging Plant Biotechnologies and Insights for Engaging Hard-to-Reach Populations. Presented at the Society for Risk Analysis. Austin, Texas.
Gruber, A., Bera, S., Salazar De Leon., C. (2024, September). Programmable Plants for a Sustainable Future. Presented at Slow Foods: Terra Madre. Turin, Italy.
Bera, S. (2024, April). You Can Lead a Horse to Water, But You Can't Make Him Drink’: Negotiations of Success and Sanitation in India’s Swachh Bharat Mission. Presented at the Public Communication of Science & Technology Network Symposium in Zacatecas, Mexico.
Bera, S., Vilchez, A. & Muenster, R. M., (2023, May) Environmental Issues Are Global Issues – But do environmental communication journals reflect this? A systematic review. Presented at the International Communication Association, Toronto, Canada.

Publications

Bera, S., Salazar De Leon, C., Lewenstein, B. V., (2026). Insights for Inclusive Upstream Engagement with Migrant Farmworkers in Agriculture: A case study from the US-Mexico border. Ambio
Vilchez, A., Bera, S., Lewenstein, B. V., Hilgartner, S., (2026). Examining media coverage of ethical dimensions of advanced algorithmic technology. Public Understanding of Science
Bera, S., Vilchez, A*., & Muenster, R. M*. (2025). The persistent global disparities in environmental and climate communication scholarship. Frontiers in Communication, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.147461

Sohinee in the news

News

April 29, 2026

COMM Updates - 4/29/2026

April 29, 2026 Awards Undergraduate student Rafaela Dandolfo Bustamante has been named the inaugural Marshall Engaged Scholar. As part of the program, Rafaela will spend summer 2026 working in public media at KNPR in Las Vegas. When she returns...

COMM UPDATES from the Department of Communication

News

April 22, 2026

COMM Updates - 4/22/2026

April 22, 2026 Awards Graduate Field Administrator Joanna Alario received the Casey Moore Impact Award from the Cornell Graduate School. This award is given to a member of the administrative community who contributes to the advancement of access...