First Year Cohort
Third Year Cohort
Fourth Year Cohort
All But Dissertation
John Cheney
jcheney [at] usc [dot] edu
John Cheney graduated from American University with a B.A. in both Political Science and International Relations. John is interested in the social and political uses of communication technologies within crisis and post-crisis environments. He is also interested in the intersection of commerce and new media, focusing on Web 2.0 and other forms of user-generated content as they relate to the political economy of information.
Lauren Frank
lfrank [at] usc [dot] edu
Lauren Frank graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Psychology, writing her thesis on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and children's television. She earned her MHS from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in May 2006. She has worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services conducting research on maternal and child health. Her current focus is health communication, mass media, and organizational communication. She works on the Annenberg National Health Communication Survey and is a member of the International Communication Association.
Carmen Gonzalez
cagonzal [at] usc [dot] edu
Carmen Gonzalez completed her undergraduate work at USC with a B.A. in Print Journalism and Chicano Studies, and a minor in Spanish. Upon graduation she interned for two Los Angeles-based magazines and then worked for the USC Metamorphosis Project as project specialist. Carmen has been working with the project for many years and has been involved in systematic social observation, community focus groups and television/newspaper content analyses. Her current research interests include the role of ethnic media in promoting political participation and how immigrants incorporate new communication technologies into their daily lives. Carmen also works with SCOPE, a community organizing group in South Los Angeles, and will be exploring the roles that community-based organizations play in fostering civic engagement and intergroup relations. Her most recent paper, “The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Latino Political Mobilization via Communication Networks”, will be presented at the 2007 National Communication Association annual convention.
Jessica Gould
jessicjg [at] usc [dot] edu
Jessica Gould graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a B.A. in Psychology. As an undergraduate Jessica coordinated a series of interview studies investigating people's mental imagery for metaphoric language under the supervision of Dr. Raymond Gibbs. Her work with Dr. Gibbs resulted in the article "Imagining metaphorical actions: How embodied simulation makes the impossible plausible" which will be published in the journal Imagination, Cognition and Personality. Jessica has served as a teaching assistant for courses in public health and psychology. During her graduate studies Jessica would like to examine the ways that organizational structure, organizational culture and communication technologies in the workplace influence each other. She is also interested in investigating the factors that influence the adoption of new communication technologies in the workplace.
Amy Granados
agranado [at] usc [dot] edu
In May 2005, Amy D. Granados received a B.A. in both Communication and Psychology from USC. Her research interests address the effects of gender-related media portrayals on children. More specifically, she plans to investigate the potentially harmful impact that viewing hypersexualized ideal body types may have on younger audiences. These interests emerged when Amy began work as a project manager overseeing content studies designed to assess gender portrayals in children's media. Her teaching experience involves two undergraduate research classes dealing with applied approaches to conducting content analytic work. She was a co-author on three manuscripts that were presented at the International Communication Association Conference in the summer of 2006 in Dresden, Germany.
Maura Klosterman
maura.klosterman [at] usc [dot] edu
Maura Klosterman received her B.A. in Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley with an emphasis in Narrative and Image. Her first job out of college was as a lexicographer and she has since held positions with the Culver City Unified School District, The University of California, The French National Ministry of Education, American Apparel and American Public Media. She believes that human actions begin with what people have the capacity to conceive as possible and that these conceptions are derived from the representations of human life available to an individual's imagination. She is very excited to be a part of Annenberg's Ph.D. program in Communication, where she hopes to continue delving into questions related to public imagination with a specific focus on user-interface design and music editing software.
Charlotte Lapsansky
lapsansk [at] usc [dot] edu
Charlotte Lapsansky is interested in media and entertainment effects on culture, norms and behaviors and media’s role in social change. She has a strong background in human rights, gender, race and international development. Ms. Lapsansky worked in Delhi as program coordinator for communications with Breakthrough, an organization that uses pop culture and education to raise awareness about human rights. She is working on the research and strategy development for an upcoming multi-media campaign to reduce stigma against HIV+ women. She also worked from 2002–2004 in the New York office of Breakthrough, where she organized a national performance theater series addressing issues of immigration and human rights; authored An Educator’s Guide to Racial and Ethnic Justice; and conducted numerous workshops and presentations on women’s rights, violence against women, racial justice and human rights. Last year, Ms. Lapsansky was an American India Foundation fellow working with Pravah, a Delhi-based NGO that works with young people to develop leadership for social change. There she designed and conducted training programs on development and cross-cultural adaptation and conducted an impact assessment of a teachers training program. Ms. Lapsansky graduated from Brown University in Biology, where she conducted biological field work and research on animal behavior as well as engaging in research on urban development issues in the US and India.
Jingfang Liu
jingfanl [at] usc [dot] edu
Jingfang Liu's research interests include ICT and social change at the organizational, societal, and global levels, the space between technologies and cultural values, virtual communities, NGO network, and environmental communication. Prior to coming to USC Annenberg, she worked as an IT business analyst and consultant for various organizations including Cox Communications, Georgia.gov, and small businesses, and served clients such as GE and the Federal Home Loan Bank. She originally came from Beijing, China, and obtained an M.S. in CIS (Computer Information Systems) and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics, both at Georgia State University. She also holds a B.A. in English.
Eleanor Morrison
egmorris [at] usc [dot] edu
Eleanor Morrison graduated from the University of Georgia with a major in Media Studies and minors in Sociology and Drama. After working in Hollywood and the D.C. non-profit world, she returned to academia via the Institute of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics & Political Science (MSc in Social and Public Communication, '06). Ms. Morrison's academic work revolves around the intersection of popular culture and social change, with a specific interest in issues of tolerance and equality.
Russell Newman
rnewman [at] usc [dot] edu
Russell Newman presently serves as the research director for the national nonprofit advocacy group Free Press. There, he focuses on media and telecommunications policy, tracking current issues, writing issue briefs, creating Web content and speaking publicly regarding emerging debates. With Robert McChesney and Ben Scott, he is the co-editor of The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century (Seven Stories Press, 2005), named as one of Working Assets' Recommended Reads for July 2005. Before joining Free Press, he was a freelance multimedia designer and served as production designer for several independent films. He was also active in noncommercial radio in Boston for nearly a decade. Russell was a Waterston Fellow at Suffolk University's Sawyer School of Management, where he earned a master's degree focusing on the political economy of mass communication, nonprofit management and documentary production; he earned his bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Russell is interested in exploring the intersections of the political economy of our developing global media system, the systemic elements (social, economic and political) that perpetuate existing structures of power, and the struggles of local communities against these structures.
Shuya Pan
shuyapan [at] usc [dot] edu
Pan graduated from China University of Politics and Law with a B.A. in Law and completed her first year of study in the Master of Communication Management program at USC Annenberg. Pan has broad interests in studies of media, cross-cultural communications, and the socioeconomic, political and cultural changes with the development of information and communication technologies. Since graduation, Pan had been a journalist in China's Xinhua News Agency and covered a wide range of important issues on finance, macroeconomy, and political and social events.
Joe Phua
phua [at] usc [dot] edu
Joe Phua graduated from USC with a B.A. in Cinema-Television Critical Studies, and a MA in Communication Management in 2003. His M.A. thesis was about the effects of violent video games on players. Joe's academic interests include digital media, analyzing consumer behavior, media ethics, media effects, psychology of entertainment, race and gender portrayals in media, and emerging trends in popular culture. Joe's previous work experience includes working in public relations for MTV Networks, doing media planning at Dailey & Associates advertising and music/talent management at The Firm.
Rabindra A. Ratan
ratan [at] usc [dot] edu
Robby Ratan came to USC Annenberg after six years at Stanford University, where he received a B.A. with honors in Science, Technology and Society and an M.A. in Communication with a focus in Human Computer Interaction, and worked as a research assistant at Stanford's Communication between Humans and Interactive Media (CHIMe) Lab and the Toyota Info Technology Center in Palo Alto. His research interests are primarily focused on the psychology of advanced media interfaces and virtual worlds. He has designed and run numerous experimental studies to test the psychological implications of various technologies, including the Nintendo Wii, immersive virtual reality environments, driving simulators, and automated voice interfaces. At Annenberg, Robby is continuing this type of research while also exploring related areas, such as the sociological implications of online communities, especially virtual worlds such as MMORPGS and Second Life. He is interested in developing theories relating to virtual self-presentation, identity management, social and self-presence, choice, and attention/multi-tasking. He also sporadically posts to his blog at: http://mediaman-raratan.blogspot.com/.
Janel S. Schuh
schuh [at] usc [dot] edu
Janel Schuh received a B.S. from James Madison University, after which she worked for five years in the film business on projects including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Halloween H20. She then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under a Park Foundation Fellowship. As a master's student, Ms. Schuh presented papers at the AEJMC Southeast Regional Colloquium and the ICA Annual Conference. Her thesis developed the concept of false intimacy to explain media users' vicarious involvement with celebrities, a topic she would like to pursue further in her doctoral studies. In the six years since earning her M.A., Ms. Schuh has worked as a research professional, most recently for the U.S. Department of Commerce. Besides celebrities in the media, her research interests include mass media effects, entertainment media (especially for children and teens) and media literacy.
Nupur Sen
nsen [at] usc [dot] edu
Nupur Sen works in the area of health communication, with an especial interest in HIV/AIDS and health issues facing the developing world. She is currently working on four projects: a BBC WST condom normalization project underway in India, the factors that motivate parents of children with cancer to seek both information and social support in the online world, and the adverse health consequences of shift work in the Indian Business Process Outsourcing industry. Prior to enrolling in the doctoral program at Annenberg, Nupur worked as a business correspondent with Reuters and a producer with CNBC. She has a Master's degree in English from the University of Connecticut, a Bachelor's degree also in English from St. Xavier's College, a Jesuit college in Calcutta, India, and a diploma in Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism, India where she trained under the BBC's Naomi Goldsmith.
Nicole (Nikki) Usher
nusher [at] usc [dot] edu
Nikki Usher's work focuses on two distinct areas: cultural/critical studies of journalism and gay and lesbian studies. Her work on journalism focuses on the transition of old media technology (namely print and broadcast) to new media technology. She looks at this from an organizational and a cultural perspective. Nikki is interested in news practices, media self-critique, occupational identity, public discourse and online journalism. Her work on gay and lesbian studies examines public deliberation and media representation of homosexuality. A former journalist, Nikki has written for a number of newspapers across the nation. Nikki graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude with a B.A. in History.
Matthew Weber
matthesw [at] usc [dot] edu
Matthew Weber is focused on the evolution of organizational structures and the interplay between structuration and technology. His primary interest within this area is the emergence, growth and eventual decline of individual online communities, as well as the changing business practices that result from the collision of brands and communities. Methodologically, Matthew is working to advance network theory in the area of graph modeling and to develop techniques for managing large-scale data analysis. He has recently given lectures and presentations on the evolution of the newspaper industry and the business of media. He is a member of the Phi Beta Tau Journalism Honors Society, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Previously, he worked as a media strategist for Starcom Worldwide and as an assistant brand manager for Tribune Corp., where he launched multiple new media initiatives. Matthew earned a B.S . in Industrial Engineering and Economics from Northwestern University, and received an M.S. in Journalism and Media Management at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.