Graduate

Graduate Faculty

Learn with faculty members who represent a wide variety of research interests and professional and academic backgrounds.

Colin Agur

Colin Agur, Associate Professor, Cowles Fellow in Journalism, Media and Mobility

MA, international political economy, University of Warwick; MPhil and PhD, communications, Columbia University

Areas of research include mobile communication, telecommunications, social media, political economy of media, political communication, and media studies.

Sid Bedingfield

Sid Bedingfield, Associate Professor, Cowles Fellow in Journalism, Democracy, and Race

MA and PhD, Mass Communication, University of South Carolina

Research interests include political communication, history of journalism, role of mediated communication in political and cultural change.

Valerie Belair-Gagnon

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, Associate Professor, Cowles Fellow in Media Management, Director of Undergraduate Studies

MSc, sociology, Université​ De Montréal; PhD, sociology, City University of London

Areas of research include journalism studies, news production, social media, media sociology, and digital culture.

Matt Carlson

Matt Carlson, Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Cowles Fellow in Journalism

MA and PhD, University of Pennsylvania

Areas of interest include journalism studies, media studies, and cultural studies

Elisia Cohen

Elisia Cohen, Professor and Director

MA, Communication, Wake Forest University; PhD, Communication, University of Southern California

Areas of research include health and political communication with specific depth of expertise in developing and evaluating multilevel interventions to improve cancer and vaccination communication, community-based participatory research strategies and community-engaged intervention trial research designs, and media content analysis.

Jisu Huh

Jisu Huh, Professor, Raymond O. Mithun Chair in Advertising

MA and PhD, advertising, University of Georgia

Areas of research include computational advertising research, consumer trust and its role in viral advertising and information diffusion, viral advertising and consumer-brand engagement in social media, and direct-to-consumer advertising of healthcare products.

Sherri Katz

Sherri Jean Katz, Associate Professor, Fellow in Health Communication

MA, culture and communications, New York University; MS and PhD, communication, Cornell University

Research interests include health communication, technology, youth, media psychology, construal level theory, and psychological reactance.

Jane Kirtley

Jane Kirtley, Professor, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law

Director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law MS, journalism, Northwestern University and J.D., law, Vanderbilt University

Areas of research include media law; First Amendment issues; and freedom of information. Kirtley is an affiliated faculty member of the University of Minnesota Law School.

Maria Len-Rios

María E. Len-Ríos, Associate Director & Professor

PhD, University of Missouri-Columbia

Conducts research in the areas of public relations, health, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Rebekah Nagler

Rebekah Nagler, Associate Professor, Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in Liberal Arts

PhD, communication, University of Pennsylvania

Research areas include the effects of routine exposure to health information in the media; cancer communication; and communication inequalities and health disparities.

Amy O'Connor

Amy O'Connor, Associate Professor, Fellow in Strategic Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility

MA, communication, Western Michigan University; PhD, communication, Purdue University

Area of research is corporate communication with a focus on corporate social responsibility messaging and its effects on reputation, branding, legitimacy, and employee recruitment/retention.

Haseon Park

Haseon Park, Assistant Professor

Ph.D., University of Alabama

Research interests include primarily focus on examining consumer-brand relationship building on emerging media platforms and interactive advertising effectiveness by incorporating various quantitative methodologies

Hyejoon Rim

Hyejoon Rim, Associate Professor, Fellow in Comparative International Public Relations

MS, public relations, Syracuse University; PhD, mass communication, University of Florida

Areas of research include corporate social responsibility, consumer skepticism, crisis communication, and public engagement and social media.  

Adam Saffer

Adam Saffer, Associate Professor

PhD, University of Oklahoma

Research revolves around understanding the ways individuals, groups and organizations use and are influenced by communication networks.

Claire Segijn

Claire M. Segijn, Associate Professor, Mithun Program Fellow in Advertising

MSc and PhD, communication science, University of Amsterdam

Areas of research include media multitasking, attention, synced advertising (personalized advertising), and corporate surveillance.

erich sommerfeldt

Erich Sommerfeldt, Associate Professor, Academic Director of the Professional Master's in Strategic Communication

PhD, Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma.

Research includes the ways in which communication contributes to rebuilding relationships in developing nations, and in crisis, conflict prone or post-conflict societies. 

Chris Terry

Chris Terry, Associate Professor, Cowles Fellow in Journalism, Policy and Law

MA, mass communication, UW-Milwaukee; PhD, mass communication/law, University of Wisconsin

Researches policy implementation and enforcement by the FCC, FTC, and FEC. Focus on structural issues related to media ownership, new media, and the regulation of both commercial speech and political advertising.

Ben Toff

Benjamin Toff, Assistant Professor, Director, Minnesota Journalism Center, Cowles Fellow in Political Journalism

MA and PhD, political science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research interests include news audiences and political engagement, public opinion and mass media, changing norms and practices of political journalism, and political communication.

Emily Vraga

Emily Vraga, Associate Professor, Don and Carole Larson Professorship

PhD, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Areas of research include how people process news and information about contentious health, scientific, and political issues, particularly in response to disagreeable messages they encounter in digital media environments. 

Marco Yzer

Marco Yzer, Professor, Fellow in Health Communication

MA and PhD, social & organizational psychology, University of Groningen (Netherlands)

Areas of research include the evaluation of mass media campaigns, experimental tests of message effectiveness, tests of the validity of theories of behavioral change and the applicability of such theories to health communication.

Alvin Zhou

Alvin Zhou, Assistant Professor

PhD, communication, University of Pennsylvania

Research interests include strategic communication, audience analytics, and computational social science