Mariela Morales Suárez

Mariela Morales Suárez studies communications in Latin America and the Caribbean with a focus on Post-Soviet Cuba.

She is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania where she specializes in transnational media flows, technological appropriations, diasporic identity formation, and popular culture. Her recent research looks at the transnational networks of production and distribution of Cuban popular culture and the appropriation of media technologies for the reconfiguration of alterity. She has written about emergent media landscapes in Cuba and, in collaboration with Michael Delli Carpini and Burt Herman, she co-developed a study of information needs and habits of Philadelphians.

Mariela joined Annenberg after two years as a Research and Programs Analyst at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, where she developed research and engagement projects related to local media ecosystems. She received her BA and MA in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 and 2021.