First Year Cohort Bios

Second Year Cohort
Third Year Cohort
Fourth Year Cohort
All But Dissertation

Stylés Akira
akira@usc.edu

Stylés Akira received his B.A. from Pace University, Manhattan in Applied Psychology & Human Relations.  He is a member of the International Communication Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.  Stylés earned his M.A. in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Sociology from St. John’s University in May 2009.  His graduate thesis is titled “Technological Advancement and the Artistic Decline of Popular Music”, wherein he examines the cultural ramifications of the widely available use of new age digital recording techniques and their influence on the ability of the corporate bureaucracy of the recording industry to bypass artistic integrity in favor of visceral marketing appeals.  Stylés worked in the recording industry in New York City for a decade prior to pursuing a degree in Communication.  He is interested in advertising, branding, mass media, and public relations. His current focus is evaluating the dynamics of consumer brand relationships.  At Annenberg, he hopes to study Media, Culture, and Community as well as Information and Society.

Zheng An
zan@usc.edu

Zheng An graduated from Tsinghua University with a BA in Journalism in 2006. She received her MA in Communication from the University of New Mexico in 2008 (thesis on Perceptions of Appropriate Tactics to Communicate a Mental Illness Diagnosis). At UNM, she also studied in the Master’s program in Statistics, worked in the Department of Psychology on EEG data analysis, and taught undergraduate courses in Public Speaking, English Composition, and Introduction to Statistics. Prior to her graduate study, Zheng participated in “World Without Borders,” an international exchange program, with AIESEC (a world non-profit organization) in Ukraine, and interned in PHOENIXTV in Beijing. Zheng is interested in the influence of communication on health-related issues, such as social perceptions of mental and physical diseases. At Annenberg, she hopes to study interpersonal and health communication, as well as interdisciplinary perspectives on health and culture.

Shoko Barnes
shbarnes@usc.edu

Shoko received her B.A. in Communication Studies from Ibaraki University in Japan and her M.A. in Communication Studies with a research assistantship from University of Northern Iowa. Her professional experience includes teaching and business in both countries. For ten years, she has taught English, Human Communication and Critical Thinking courses in Tokyo, Iowa, California and Connecticut, and also worked in textbook publishing for several years. Her thesis work takes an unique approach in attempting to design a public speaking textbook specifically adapted for Japanese college courses and presented the paper at NCA in 2008. Shoko is an executive member of Japan-U.S. Communication Association in NCA and has served as liaison for both countries. Also in 2008, at the National Conference of Argumentation held in Tokyo, she presented her most recent paper, “Japanese Argumentation Under Hierarchy” revealing non-practices of argumentation in Japanese current political, business and family arrangements. Shoko is currently working on employing psychoanalysis and rhetorical criticism to analyze media effects on children. Other research interests include organizational communication, public discourse, argumentation and advocacy.

Kevin Driscoll
driscollkevin@gmail.com

Kevin Driscoll earned his BA in Visual Art from Assumption College in 2002 and anticipates receiving an MS in Comparative Media Studies from MIT in 2009. His thesis details a tradition of technical innovation among young people of color in hip-hop culture. He returned to academia in 2007 after three years teaching Computer Science at Prospect Hill Academy Charter School in Cambridge, MA. There he explored identity management, media production, literacy, hacking, and hip-hop with students in grades 6-12. Kevin is a board member of Students for Free Culture concerned with protecting fair use in web video and supporting open education initiatives. In addition, Kevin is a DJ heard on the radio, in clubs, and at house parties around Boston. His website is http://kevindriscoll.info.

Sandra Evans
bangasse@usc.edu

Sandra Evans graduated from Northwestern University with a BS in Communication, double-majoring in Radio, Television and Film, and International Studies. She attended a dual-master’s degree program, receiving an MSc in Global Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MA in Global Communication at the University of Southern California. In London, Sandra focused on new media and information systems, and theories of globalization. Her MSc thesis attempted to recontextualize the theory of political marketing in relation to non-governmental organizations like the World Intellectual Property Organization. At USC, Sandra’s research has focused on organizational culture, online communities and integrated communications. Her USC master’s thesis studied how organizational culture affects strategy and vision within an entertainment firm. Prior to pursuing her dual master’s degree in London and Southern California, Sandra worked in film and television post production in Los Angeles on projects ranging from award-winning documentary and independent films, to movie trailers, to big-budget feature films. She also has teaching experience in the field of martial arts, in which she taught children, teens and adults. At Annenberg, Sandra plans to pursue research in the field of organizational communication with a focus on new media, networks and globalization.

Jinghui (Jove) Hou
jovehou@gmail.com

Jinghui "Jove" Hou received her B.S. in Statistics from Fudan University and her M.A. degree in Media Studies from Syracuse University. Jove's research focuses on social psychological factors related to new media, especially in the effects of new communication technology elements upon users' thoughts, emotion, and behaviors. She's also interested in youth socilization and civic participation. Her master's thesis examined the relationship between Instant Messaging use and political learning behavior. You can read it here (http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/convergence/v6no4.html). Before coming to the States, Jove worked in an investment company as a financial analyst in Shanghai and Hong Kong. During her master's study, Jove also interned at Sina.com (www.sina.com) based in Sunnyvale, California. At Annenberg, she plans to extend her research to new communication technologies, international communication and communication methods. (more: http://jinghuihou.weebly.com/)

Neta Kligler Vilenchik
netakligler@gmail.com

Neta graduated Summa Cum Laude from Tel Aviv University, studying communication and political science. She will be receiving her MA in communication from the University of Haifa in 2009. During her graduate studies, Neta's main research interest revolved around media's role in the shaping of collective memory. Neta's teaching and research experience involved the use of both quantitative and qualitative research methods, a combination which she strives to apply in her own research as well. Thus, her MA thesis attempted to apply Agenda-Setting methodology to collective memory research, in order to track media's influence on the public's perceptions regarding collective memory. At Annenberg, Neta would like to explore the intersections between media, memory, nationality and identity.

Li Lu
lvli219@gmail.com

Li Lu received her B.A. from Peking University with double majors in Publishing Science and World History. She will receive her M.S. from Communication Department, Cornell University. During her undergraduate study, Li spent two summers conducting ethnographic research in Northern Tibet, especially the difficulties that prevent women from receiving education. Prior to her graduate study, Li interned in Hoffman Agency, an international PR firm concentrating on high technology products. At Annenberg, she hopes to study knowledge management in organizations, especially multicultural organizations. Li is also interested in cross-cultural differences in NGO development.

Ritesh Mehta
creativelives@yahoo.com

Ritesh received his Bachelors in marketing and management from the University of Pennsylvania, where with the exception of Consumer Behavior, his favorite classes were firmly non-business. Ironically then, he embarked upon a mini-career in marketing and sales in the higher end of the jewelry industry, helping brand sentiments of luxury while attending international trade shows. For a year in between, he reveled as a copywriter in a Mumbai advertising agency, helping create and execute campaigns for the Coffee Board of India, Philips and PSI. After much reflection, Ritesh decided to return to academia, to which end received an MA in philosophy from the University of Missouri-St Louis. While in St Louis, he also conducted research on event segmentation at the Dynamic Cognition Lab at Washington University. At USC Annenberg, Ritesh shall finally pay ode to his enduring interests at the intersections of film theory and criticism, popular culture and media studies. One potential research avenue involves exploring the interdependencies among the processes of filmmaking from the perspective of distributed / situated / extended cognition. Generally though, Ritesh wants to understand what moves people to participate in the cinematic and web arts and how these media are themselves accordingly moved. Among his great loves are Oscar prognostication blogwatching, HBO’s Six Feet Under and the transmedia of LotR.

Poong Oh
poongoh@usc.edu

Poong Oh received his B.A. and M.A. in mass communication from Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea; minor in philosophy) and his M.S. in journalism & mass communication from Iowa State University (minors in statistics and sociology). He presented several papers in the fields of political communication, international communication, media effects, and communication theory at the recent conferences of the ICA and the AEJMC. One of his articles was published in Journal of Korean Journalism and Communication (title: Television Program as Facilitator of Social Capital: Construction of Social Capital Index for Television Program). His major interests focus on the complex and dynamic processes of social interactions and the roles of communications in the processes, in which social structures arise from interactions among individual actors and the emergent structures constrain and enable individuals’ social actions. More specifically, he is interested in how people share their experience and knowledge through various communication channels, how their opinions and attitudes are formed, and how communication relations evolve through the iterative processes. In terms of methodology, he is also interested in social network analysis, computational/mathematical modeling, and advanced statistical methods.

Andrew Schrock
aschrock@usc.edu

Andrew Schrock received his B.A. with honors in Fine Art and Computer Science from Brandeis University. He then worked as a software engineer, and freelance journalist on topics of technology and music. After receiving an M.A. in Communication from the University of Central Florida, where Andrew authored an award-winning thesis on youth dependency on social network sites, he moved to California with his wife. He has taught applied topics at a diverse set of universities and departments, including Digital Media (UCF), Journalism (CSU Long Beach), and Communication (USC). Most recently, he was Assistant Director of the Annenberg Program on Online Communities, a 1-year Master’s program at USC. Andrew has authored several conference and journal articles, as well as a large report on online solicitation and harassment with danah boyd at Harvard’s Berkman Center. In addition to online safety, he is interested in media convergence, mixed-methods research, and online communities.

Jaclyn Selby
jaclyn_selby@yahoo.com

Jaclyn Selby holds a BA in Economics & Media Studies from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in Communications, Culture & Technology from Georgetown with an honors certificate in International Business Diplomacy and an award of Distinction. While completing her MA she served as a graduate fellow at the Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship and got involved with a start-up brand strategy consulting firm as Research and Marketing Director. Previously, Jackie had worked in PR and taught digital film editing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is currently a contributing writer to Foreign Policy Digest and most recently worked at a global biosurveillance firm, where she headed research projects on trade, technology, and global infectious diseases and served as an overseas contract consultant for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Jackie’s research interests include global media and technology policy, trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPs), applications of Information Communication Technologies for international development (ICT4D) and Webware.

Francesca Smith
francescamariesmith@gmail.com

Francesca Smith received an honors BA degree in linguistics from Stanford University, studying critical discourse analysis and sociolinguistics in the context of women's magazines and messages of morality. She then earned her MA degree in communication at Pepperdine University, concentrating on Critical Studies of Media and Rhetoric; her master's thesis was titled "White Man's World, Black Woman's Power: Condoleezza Rice's Rhetorical Identity at the Intersection of Presidentiality, Gender, and Race." Upon graduation, she was hired to teach Public Speaking and Rhetorical Analysis at Pepperdine University while continuing her long-standing career as a debate coach for various Southern California forensics programs. Since the age of three, Francesca has also been a professional performer, enjoying a relatively high degree of success in Hollywood before choosing to devote her time more fully to her academic pursuits. However, she continues to teach and study ballroom dancing, and she is also an executive director (and co-founder) of a local non-profit theatre group dedicated to performance and education. She looks forward to continuing her study of communication, mass media, and rhetoric at USC, ultimately seeking to bridge the oft-discrete realms of scholarship and media production. Her research interests include morality in entertainment, video games, new media communities and their implications, gender and racial representation, and humor. Ideally, she seeks to integrate a critical academic perspective into the entertainment industry as a successful media creator while also contributing to the academic world via teaching, research, and writing.

Minhee Son
minheeson@gmail.com

Minhee Son graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California (Honors thesis, “The Blair Witch Phenomenon: Film Publicity on the Internet and the Moral Implications). As an undergraduate, she worked as a publicity intern with Focus Features/Rogue Pictures at NBC Universal, acted as President of the Korean Film Club (currently, the Asian Film Club) and was an Annenberg Ambassador. Minhee will receive an MA in Visual Communication from Yonsei University Graduate School of Communication and Arts in August 2009. At Yonsei, she presented papers at the 2008 ACS Cross-Roads Conference in Jamaica (“Bridging the Gap between the Individual and Social through Play: An Investigation of Cosplay Culture in Korea) and at the 2007 Seoul Symposium on Mobile Communication (“Cultures of Ambivalence: An Investigation of College Students’ Uses of the Camera Phone and Cyworld’s Minihompy”). Her current focus is on the relationship between multiculturalism and the everyday use of the media, and is conducting research for her MA thesis on migrant workers in Korea, looking at how the everyday use of the media helps maintain and negotiate between multiple identities. At Annenberg, she hopes to study nationalism and national identity in the context of globalization and digitalization. Other general research interests include multiculturalism, intercultural communication, and new media.

Benjamin Stokes
benjamin@newdream.net

Benjamin Stokes investigates how digital media foster civic learning and participation.  Previously he co-founded Games for Change, the branch of the serious games movement focused on social issues and nonprofit organizations.  Most recently, he was an education program officer at the MacArthur Foundation in their $50 million portfolio on Digital Media and Learning.  Benjamin has also led the development of original digital media properties; at the educational nonprofit NetAid, his team created digital games and an activist training website that engaged more than 150,000 youth in fighting extreme poverty.  Benjamin studied the single atom wire for his B.A. in physics at Haverford College, while also co-founding the campus anti-sweatshop alliance.

Deja (Lana) Swartz
lanalana@gmail.com

Lana holds a Masters degree in Comparative Media Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her thesis was an ethnographic study of the cultural economy of counterfeit luxury fashion. At CMS, she was a research assistant of Henry Jenkins' Project New Media Literacies research group and developed a Teachers' Strategy Guide on cultural geography and new media. She graduated in 2002 from the University of Florida, where she studied English and wrote an honors thesis about sex and advertising in James Joyce's Ulysses. After graduation, she taught high school English in Houston, Texas, with TeachForAmerica. Since then, she's worked in nonprofit development and autism education and research. She also is a freelance ethnographic consumer researcher and has worked with Flamingo International for clients such P&G, L'Oreal, Diageo, and Samsung. Lana grew up on a houseboat in Miami, Florida and is the proud owner of a chihuahua named Special Agent Dale Cooper.

Ray Vichot
rvichot@gmail.com

Ray Vichot graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Comparative Media Studies in 2004. He attended New York University and attained a Masters in Cinema Studies as well as a Graduate Certificate in Culture and Media in 2006. In May 2009, Ray will receive a Masters in Digital Media from Georgia Institute of Technology. His thesis was on the relationship between online Communities of Practice and real-world instantiations. The online community Anonymous and its anti-Scientology protests served as a case study. He is interested in global popular culture, online and fan communities, and media criticism. Ray has worked for PBS KIDS Interactive in Arlington, VA on information, website, and game design. He is currently the Atlanta Gaming Examiner for Examiner.com. He directed an ethnographic documentary Costume Play in 2006 and shot, conducted interviews, and co-edited the film Conventional Dress for the Experimental Game Group at Georgia Tech in 2008. He has also co-designed several websites and games at Georgia Tech, most recently Ellis Island, an educational board game about immigration during the turn of the 20th century. At Annenberg, Ray hopes to study Media, Culture and Community as well as Organizational Communication.

Elisheva Weiss
elisheva.weiss@gmail.com

Elisheva Weiss graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in political science in May 2007. At Columbia, she did research on Howell Raines’ short tenure as executive editor of The New York Times and on what traits are crucial to effective newsroom leadership. She has spent time copy editing in the newsrooms of publications including The Washington Post, Slate Magazine, The Washington Times, and the Columbia Daily Spectator. Those experiences combined with her research spurred Elisheva’s interest in executive leadership and management in newsrooms. At Annenberg she intends to study newsroom leadership, specifically how executive leaders manage newsrooms and how that affects newsroom staff and, in turn, the product, especially in the digital age with a product that is increasingly Web-based.

Nan Zhao
eyesonme805@gmail.com

Nan received her bachelor's degree in Public Health from Peking University Health Science Center (former Beijing Medical University). Prior to enrolling in graduate school, she worked at National Center for Women and Children's Health, China CDC for four years, where she played an active role in several national projects focusing on reproductive health issues. Nan is completing her MPH at University of Michigan School of Public Health in April 2009, majoring in health behavior and health education. Her main research interest is the dynamics of health-related actions, in particular those associated with reproductive health, family planning, and HIV/AIDS. She is also interested in the innovative and/or practical application of media and technology in designing health communication campaigns or other activities in the resources-limited context of the developing world. At Annenberg, she hopes to continue her exploration in the intersection of health, communication, and the confluence of factors affecting people's behavior choices.