Annenberg Alumni News, Summer 2021

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1960-1969

Anne Klein (M.A.C. ‘65), founder of Anne Klein Communications Group (AKCG), has just published a new book entitled Finding your Career Niche: Conversations About Women and Business (Business Expert Press). The book offers women perspective on topics such as choosing a career path, networking, and navigating corporate spaces.

1980-1989

Michael Gyory (M.A.C. ‘81) was named Chairperson of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center (HHREC), a not-for-profit organization based in White Plains, NY. HHREC teaches the lessons of human rights through the lens of the holocaust.

It is with a heavy heart that we share the passing of Stephen Robert Prince (Ph.D. ’87). Prince died in his home in December 2020 after a battle with cancer. He was a lover of film, spending 32 years teaching cinema at Virginia Tech and publishing 16 books on film during his life. Read more about Prince.

2000-2009

Professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, Jennifer Stromer-Galley (Ph.D. ‘02) has published a new article in the Journal of Language and Politics, entitled “More than “Fake News”? The Media as a Malicious Gatekeeper and a Bully in the Discourse of Candidates in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.”

Kimberly Meltzer (Ph.D. ‘07) has been named Director of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Marymount University.

Executive Director at Peripheral Vision International, Paul Falzone (Ph.D. ‘08) is co-editor of a new book entitled Entertainment-Education Behind the Scenes: Case Studies for Theory and Practice (Palgrave). He also developed a new children’s show called N*Gen, which explores science through an African lens and airs in Uganda.

Susan Sherr (Ph.D. ‘08) was promoted to Senior Vice President of SSRS, a survey and market research firm.

2010-2019

Michael Serazio (Ph.D. ‘10), Associate Professor of Communication at Boston College, was named “Teacher of the Year” by the Boston College chapter of Alpha Sigma Nu.

Associate Professor of Communication at Cornell University, Brooke Erin Duffy (Ph.D. ‘11) contributed a chapter to a new book entitled Creator Culture: An Introduction to Global Social Media Entertainment (NYU Press).

Khadijah Costley White (Ph.D. ‘11) received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor at Rutgers University. White studies media and politics in Rutgers’s School of Communication and Information.

Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, Christopher Ali (Ph.D. ‘13) is the author of forthcoming book Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity (MIT Press). The book, coming in September, looks at the failure of U.S. broadband policy to solve the rural-urban digital divide.

Sandra Ristovska (Ph.D. ‘16), Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, received a 2021-2022 Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellowship. She also has a new book out, entitled Seeing Human Rights: Video Activism as a Proxy Profession (MIT Press).

Visiting Assistant Professor at Ursinus College, Doron Taussig (Ph.D. ‘17) is the author of a new book, What We Mean by the American Dream (Cornell University Press). The book explores interviews with a diverse group of Americans to analyze the concept of the American dream.

Rosemary Clark-Parsons (Ph.D. ‘18), Program Manager at the Center for Social Impact Strategy at Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice, worked on a report with Independence Public Media Foundation (IPMF) on grassroots media as an information source for Philadelphia residents.

Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Buffalo, Yotam Ophir (Ph.D. ‘18) contributed a chapter to the new book Entertainment-Education Behind the Scenes. Ophir’s chapter is entitled “The Emotional Flow Hypothesis in Entertainment-Education Narratives: Theory, Empirical Evidence, and Open Questions.”

Aaron Shapiro (Ph.D. ‘18), Assistant Professor of Technology Studies at the University of North Carolina, is the author of a new book called Design, Control, Predict: Local Governance in the Smart City (University of Minnesota Press), which interprets urban technologies in “smart cities.”

Visiting Researcher at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School, Danny Kim (Ph.D. ’19) was recently promoted to Senior Data Scientist at Whip Media Group. In addition, he published “The Search for Pleasure and Meaning on TV, Captured In-App: Eudaimonia and Hedonism Effects on TV Consumption as Self-Reported via Mobile App” in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media and “Drawn to the Screen by Who We Are and Who We Aspire to Be: Brand-Self Congruence Differences in Movie Preferences” in the International Journal on Media Management.

Allyson Volinsky Levin (Ph.D. ‘19), Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Villanova University, was quoted in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about effective messaging around vaccine information and how social media platforms can skew that information.

2020-2021

A postdoctoral fellow with the Center on Digital Culture & Society, Natacha Yazbeck (Ph.D. ‘20) received an outstanding dissertation award from the ICA’s Journalism Studies Division and a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award. Additionally, she published an op-ed in the Columbia Journalism Review called “Behind the Byline: The Human Toll of How We (Still) Get News Out of Syria.”

Pawel Popiel (Ph.D. ‘20), who is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Media, Inequality, and Change Center, was named the 2021-2023 George Gerbner Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg School.

Amber Hye-Yon Lee (Ph.D. ‘20) began a position as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Politics at Ryerson University.

Yasemin Celikkol (Ph.D. ‘21) accepted a position at Northwestern University Qatar as its first Global Postdoctoral Scholar.

Leeann Siegel (Ph.D. ‘21) accepted a position as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute.

We love to hear from our alumni! To share your news with us, please click here.