Inna Arzumanova
iarzuman [at] usc [dot] edu

Inna Arzumanova received her BA from the University of California San Diego, with a major in Communication and a minor in Literature Writing. As an undergrad Inna carried-out a multi-modal project, which examined the effects of new media on literary distribution. After graduation, she spent a year working at Mediasmith Inc., a San Francisco advertising media agency, where she was a Media Planner. She is currently involved with KQED EdNet’s Digital Storytelling Initiative, assisting the project supervisor with community workshops. In graduate school, Inna is interested in researching the effects of new media on art and artistic communities, with a special focus on evolving literary traditions, aesthetics and communities as well as digital storytelling.

Amanda Beacom
abeacom [at] usc [dot] edu

Amanda’s research interests focus on organizational and health communication. Amanda is interested in how information, knowledge, and best practices are disseminated and shared among individuals, organizations, and networks, particularly in health care. Amanda’s prior work experience includes three years coordinating health education programs at the National Kidney Foundation, six years in editorial positions at medical journals, and an internship at the USAID Bureau for Global Health. She holds a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University and a master’s degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University.

Patrick Belanger
pbelange [at] usc [dot] edu

Patrick's research pivots on rhetoric, discourse and ideology in the contexts of conflict and environment. He studies the impact of strategic discourse on contemporary cultural and political institutions. He holds a BA in English and MA in Communication from Simon Fraser University, Canada.

 
Melissa Brough
mbrough [at] usc [dot] edu

Melissa Brough received her B.A. in Development Studies and Modern Culture & Media from Brown University. She subsequently worked in documentary film production and for FilmAid International, a non-profit organization that uses film and video to promote health and strengthen communities. As Program Officer she supported video-based, psychosocial and educational programs as well as participatory video projects in displaced communities in East Africa and elsewhere. She has collaborated with the Chiapas Media Project in Mexico, and is currently a member of the Mobile Voices project (www.vozmob.net) and the OURMedia Network (www.ourmedianetwork.org). Her research interests include communication for social change; participatory media practices and civic engagement; new media and social movements; program evaluation; and the visual culture of humanitarianism and development.

 
Nien Tsu (Nancy) Chen
nientsuc [at] usc [dot] edu

Nancy Chen graduated from the University of Melbourne with an honours degree in Media and Communications. She wrote her honours thesis on the cinematic representation and construction of national identity. Nancy has worked as a news editor for radio and television companies, and is currently a member of the PR team at the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control. At Taiwan CDC, she has been involved in a range of promotional campaigns to raise public awareness on infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and avian influenza. Nancy has also completed projects for governmental and non-profit organizations as a licensed translator and interpreter between the English and Chinese languages. At Annenberg, Nancy hopes to explore ways to more effectively utilize communication as a tool of disease prevention and to investigate an approach to risk communication that seeks to inform without causing public panic.

Fan Dong
fandong [at] usc [dot] edu

Fan Dong is a current graduate student of Global Communication at the University of Southern California. She will graduate in May 2007. As a joint Master’s program, she has finished her first year MSc of Global Media and Communication at London School of Economics and Political Science (Dissertation on self identity, diasporas’ changing use of media as their everyday life and memories). She has been studying in the Master’s program of English Journalism at Tsinghua University and had her undergraduate degree in Journalism for Finance and Economics at the Central University of Finance and Economics. She has been a presenter of education, pop culture programs and events planner for NGOs and production corporations in China for three years. She is interested in the relationship between media, globalization and society, cross-cultural communication and the interplay between economy, politics, culture and the media system. Her current focus is how symbolic power embedded in cultural products could penetrate cultural barriers. At Annenberg, she hopes to study the interaction between media, culture, economics, politics and globalization.

Zhan Li
zhanli [at] usc [dot] edu

Zhan Li holds a B.A. in Social & Political Sciences and a M.Phil. in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University (Trinity) as well as a S.M. in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. He has been particularly interested in how notions of societal, institutional and personal transformation through new media technologies are useful for organizational communication and strategy. Previous thesis topics have included the World Bank's promotion of Knowledge Management and Economics in the 1990s, and the U.S. Army video game America's Army during the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War. Most recently working as a global media investment banking analyst for HSBC in New York City (with a special focus on India and China), Zhan has also been employed as a researcher at Sony (Los Angeles), the Microsoft Games-To-Teach lab at MIT (Cambridge, MA),  the London Business School's Future Media Program and UBS Warburg (London). At Annenberg, Zhan is developing skills in scenario planning and is researching the future of that field.

Yujung Nam
yujungna [at] usc [dot] edu

Yujung is an Annenberg fellow at USC communication doctoral program. Building on her previous training in media studies and performance studies particularly in the context of new communication technologies and global diaspora she continues her study of the impact of the transformation of media environment on communication and culture. Current projects include; building a sustainable community through online journalism and exploring media portrayal of Black and Latino relationship in the wake of surge in Los Angeles gang violence. She is also part of a research project that takes a mobile social networking approach to a cancer survivorship intervention for young adults from the low-income, non-English speaking populations. As a research assistant at USC Institute for Network Culture, Yujung is also investigating new metrics for analyzing and assessing virtual interactions, community building and identity negotiation in new media culture in conjunction with concepts of philanthropy, social and political activism and civic engagement. In her recent study of visual representation of user-produced avatar and its interactions in Second Life, she examined active negotiation of the meaning of gender and racial identity through identity performance. She also investigates how online players in Whyville approach issues of reproductive health in their virtual interactions and community activities. Before joining the graduate program, she worked as a knowledge management software programmer at Samsung SDS.

Nina O'Brien
nobrien [at] usc [dot] edu

Nina O’Brien graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelors in Communications and Textual Studies, and received her Masters Degree in Media Ecology from New York University’s Department of Culture and Communication. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Golden Key National honor societies. Nina’s current research focuses on labor networks and relations in communication and entertainment industries. Before beginning graduate work at USC’s Annenberg School, Nina worked in independent film production, as a full-time substitute instructor in the Department of Media Culture at the CUNY College of Staten Island, and as an adjunct professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Marymount Manhattan College, both in New York.

  
Katherine Ognyanova
ognyanova [at] usc [dot] edu

Katherine Ognyanova received her B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Sofia. Her M.A. degree from the same university is in Virtual Culture. Prior to joining the USC doctoral program in communication, Katya spent close to seven years working in the media sector. She was a writer and editor for the Economedia publishing group (part of the German media group Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt). Her responsibilities as a journalist involved observing trends in emerging technologies, online business and society. She was also in charge of covering telecommunication regulation and Internet governance.  As a Ph.D. student, Katherine does research with a broad focus on transformations of the media system and social aspects of technology. She is also interested in digital policy and information privacy. Her recent work explores the application of network analysis methods to media studies problems.

Michael Park
parkmk [at] usc [dot] edu

Michael Park graduated from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication and the School of Cinema-Television, double-majoring in Communication and Cinema-Television. During his time at USC, Michael was a member of the Lamda Pi Eta Communication Honor Society, and served as a White House Intern under President Bill Clinton. Michael received his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings School of Law. After law school, Michael worked as a trainee in motion pictures at the William Morris Agency, the world's oldest and largest entertainment agency. Michael is interested in the study of media as a form of pedagogy: how images educate the viewer on wide ranging issues such as race, sexuality, culture and politics. His particular research focus include an analysis of the political economy of culture and the formulas and conventions of production. At Annenberg, Michael hopes to focus on the Media, Culture, and Communication track. 

 
Scott Sanders
sandersw [at] usc [dot] edu

Scott Sanders received his MA in communication from the Purdue University and is currently pursuing a PhD focusing on interpersonal and health communication.  His research interests focus on the communicative and psychological aspects of online communities and mobile telephony. Specifically he is interested in how people develop trust, evaluate and manage information, and select between mediated channels in relationships that span a variety of media.  Scott is active in several research projects conducted by the Annenberg Program on Online Community and is currently a member of the LIFE Community research team exploring social support and information dissemination among pediatric cancer survivors using mobile social networking.

Courtney Schultz
cmschult [at] usc [dot] edu

Courtney Schultz graduated with a B.A. in Human Biology and a M.A. in Media Studies from Stanford University. As a research assistant in the Communication between Human and Interactive Media Lab, she worked on a number of studies dealing with communication technology. The topics included mobile phones, Human Robot Interaction, Human Computer Interaction, and ownership of digital media. Currently, she is actively involved in the Annenberg Program on Online Communities and is also researching in the areas of organizational communication, communication networks, and transactive memory systems.

Susana Smith Bautista
susanesm [at] usc [dot] edu

Susana received her Masters degree in Art History/ Museum Studies, and her Bachelors degree in Government from Pomona College. She is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi national honorary society. Susana has almost twenty years experience in the art world in Los Angeles, New York, and Europe working with museums, commercial galleries and non-profit art spaces, curating exhibitions, and writing art criticism and articles. She was Executive Director of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, Editorial Director of www.LatinArt.com, and Associate with the Daniel Saxon Gallery. Born in Pasadena, California, Susana also served the city as Arts and Culture Commissioner for six years, and is fluent in Spanish and Modern Greek. At USC, Susana is researching the role of museums in the digital age, how new technologies are affecting traditional museum practices, and the global interplay between museums and governmental bodies. She is a part of the research team working with USC Professor Anne Balsamo on a MacArthur Foundation grant, Inspiring the Technological Imagination: Museums and Libraries in the Digital Age. Her goals include contributing to research and policies that would better enable museums worldwide to understand and adapt to the digital age.

Laurance Strait
strait [at] usc [dot] edu

L. Paul Strait graduated from Catholic University with a BA in Philosophy. He is a member of the Phi Sigma Tau honor society and the Triple Nine Society. After graduating, Paul worked for a year at Market and Communications Research, Inc., conducting content analyses and survey research for the biotech firm Monsanto. Paul received an MA in Communication from George Mason University in May 2006 (Thesis: "Intercollegiate Policy Debate As Communicative Action: Can Modernity Be Salvaged?"). He is interested in the works of Jurgen Habermas and, in particular, the relationship between public discourse and the functioning of democracy. At Annenberg, he hopes to study rhetoric in the public sphere as well as the rhetoric of religious ecumenical movements.

Diana Winkelman
winkelma [at] usc [dot] edu

Diana is a doctoral student of rhetoric and political communication at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. Her research interests are contemporary and historical American public address, global controversy in international discourse concerning the environment and human rights, and ecotourism debates that stimulate the discursive negotiation of economic, political, and environmental policies worldwide. Diana holds a B.A. from Baylor University with a double major in Political Science and Speech Communication and an M.A. from Baylor University in Communication with an emphasis in political rhetoric. Her M.A. thesis explored the works of radical 19th century abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet as a figure who rhetorically influenced future American civil rights leaders and black nationalists. You can read it here. She has also served as Editorial Assistant for Rhetoric & Public Affairs, an interdisciplinary journal devoted to the history, theory, and criticism of public discourse.

Li (Leo) Xiong
lixiong [at] usc [dot] edu

Li (Leo) Xiong graduated with a B.A. in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. He received an MS in Cultural Studies from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland on a scholarship awarded by the British Council. In 2007, Leo transferred from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to join the Annenberg PhD program. He has worked in China as a producer of TV documentaries and a freelance write on pop music and video games. Li has co-authored and published journal articles and book chapters on online games and location-based services. His work has been presented at the ICA Convention (2008) and INGroup Conference (2009). Currently, Li is interested in location-aware technologies and entrepreneurship in new communication technologies, and is collaborating with startup firms for his dissertation research. More at http://www.LiPlay.com.