Learn with faculty members who represent a wide variety of research interests and professional and academic backgrounds.
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, 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.
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, 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, 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, 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 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, 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.
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, 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, 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, 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, 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, Associate Professor
PhD, University of Oklahoma
Research revolves around understanding the ways individuals, groups and organizations use and are influenced by communication networks.
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, 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, 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.
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, 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, 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, Assistant Professor
PhD, communication, University of Pennsylvania
Research interests include strategic communication, audience analytics, and computational social science