Graduate Student Directory

Communication, Culture & Media

	Nick Coffman Email: nlc59@drexel.edu Research Interests: Consumer Culture, Social Theory, Popular Culture, Social Media, Politics, Ethnography, Music Subculture Meet Nick Education MS, Drexel University, 2017 BA, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 2012 Biography Nick started his career at Drexel in an administrative role in the Department of Performing Arts. In 2019 he entered the communication, culture, and media doctoral program. His dissertation research is an ethnographic project exploring themes of social status, community, identity, resistance, and capitalism in the online guitar effects pedal community. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, listening to records, and playing guitar. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
	Luis Grande Email: ig344@drexel.edu Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence, Human-Machine Social Communication, Mediation technologies, Media ecology, Hyperreality, Media representation, Semiotics Meet Luis Education MA, Communication, University of Puerto Rico, 2020 MA, Liberal Studies, University of Miami, 2017 BA, Interdisciplinary Studies in Media Production, University of Puerto Rico, 2012 https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisalejandrogrande Biography Luis was born and raised in Venezuela. He grew up in a turbulent political climate that included coups d'etat, civil unrest, the rise of socialism, and a transition from corporate-owned to state-controlled media. These experiences led Luis to dedicate himself to the study and praxis of media and communication. He has worked in this field for more than a decade: as a TV producer, radio producer, journalist, videographer, film editor, film critic, instructor and activist. In 2012 Luis obtained a BA in Media Production from the University of Puerto Rico. He later moved to Miami where he obtained a MA in Liberal Studies (2017). He then returned to Puerto Rico to complete a MA in Communication with a focus on theory and research (2020). For his Master's in Communication, Luis wrote a paper on the manifestations of identity within communication processes mediated by Facebook. Luis is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Communication, Culture and Media, and a Blue Fellow at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
	Anya Kurennaya Email: ask325@drexel.edu Research Interests: Relationships between fashion, music, and youth culture; Design pedagogy; Language learner support Meet Anya Education MA, Fashion Studies, Parsons School of Design – The New School https://www.linkedin.com/in/anya-kurennaya-9a9ab263 Biography Anya Kurennaya is a doctoral candidate in Drexel University’s Media, Culture and Communication PhD program. She holds an MA in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design, The New School. She has published and presented on the relationships between fashion, music, and youth culture, as well as design pedagogy and language learner support. Her doctoral dissertation, "Authenticity, Exoticism, and Revival: Contemporary Tiki Bars and their 20th Century Predecessors," looks at the contemporary "tiki" scene and considers how enthusiasts in the scene construct notions of authenticity and how they negotiate tensions about the cultural symbolism of objects within the space, which both reference history and also re-imagine and re-invent it. In 2015 she participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities summer teaching institute at Drexel University titled "The Canon and Beyond: Teaching the History of Modern Design." Selected Publications: Kurennaya, A. (2016). “Новая «старая гвардия синевласых»: влияние знаменитостей на социальную историю «неестественных» оттенков волос [The Rise of the New ‘Blue Rinse Brigade’: The Impact of Celebrities on the Social History of ‘Unnatural’ Hair Color].” Теория Моды [Fashion Theory] 39: 173-191. Kurennaya, A. (2015). “Look What the Cat Dragged In: Analysing gender and sexuality in the Hot Metal Centerfolds of 1980s glam metal.” Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion 2:2-3: 199-211. Downing Peters, L., and Kurennaya, A. (2014). “Effortless Consumption: The ‘Anthropologie’ of a Brand-Focused Online Shopping Community.” In Global Fashion Brands: Style, Luxury, & History, edited by Joseph H. Hancock, II, Gjoko Muratovski, Veronica Manlow, and Anne Peirson-Smith, 135-152. Bristol; Chicago: Intellect.
	Alice Liu Email: al3582@drexel.edu Research Interests: Interpersonal relationships, Intercultural communication, Gender inequality, Dating culture, Chinese expatriate and Identity Meet Alice Education MA, University of Cincinnati, 2021 BA, Truman State University, 2019 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-liu-755521136/ Biography Alice came to the US in 2015 and received her bachelor’s degree from Truman State University with a major in communication. She found her passion studying romantic relationships, gender roles, and the issues women face within personal relationships, while pursuing her master’s in communication at the University of Cincinnati. Because of her personal experience as an international student, she is also interested in the Chinese expatriate experience. She is now a first year PhD student at Drexel exploring these same interests within the realm of media.
	Greg Loring-Albright Email: gsa33@drexel.edu Research Interests: Analog games as media, Digital adaptation, Material media, Communication about/via games Meet Greg Education Biography Greg Loring-Albright studies tabletop (board, card, role-playing) games and their digital adaptations. He serves as the editorial assistant for Explorations in Media Ecology, the official journal of the Media Ecology Association. He also designs board and role-playing games, including the recent "Bloc by Bloc: Uprising." https://www.gloringalbright.com/
	Janna MacPherson Email: jm4746@drexel.edu Research Interests: Representations of Prisons and Criminality in Media, Critical/Cultural Rhetorical Frameworks, Intersectionality in Feminist Theory, Political Communication Meet Janna Education BA, Communication Studies, Rowan University https://www.linkedin.com/in/janna-macpherson-431213132 Biography Janna is a second-year PhD student in Drexel's Communication, Culture and Media program. Her graduate research interests center around the framing of policing, prisons, surveillance, and justice in hegemonic media narratives. Janna has worked in various political offices and has focused on constituent advocacy, a core value that she implements within her research. She also grew up and spent her whole life in Philadelphia, which has inspired her to center her research around the narratives of oppressed and marginalized communities here in her own city. Janna sees academic research as one tenet of social justice that must be followed with community organizing and participation in mass movements.
	Alejandro Manga Tinoco Email: am4725@drexel.edu Research Interests: Mobility justice and transportation equity, Bike movements and cultures, Environmental and planning discourses, Qualitative Research methods in planning and transportation studies, Visual and mobile ethnography Meet Alejandro Education MA, Development and Territorial Economics, University of Grenoble-Alpes (France), 2020 MA, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Geneva (Switzerland), 2020 BA, History, University of Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès (France), 2007 BA, International Economics, Money and Finance, University of Toulouse 1 Capitole (France), 2005 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-manga-tinoco-13143896/ Biography Alejandro is a Ph.D. candidate from Colombia. Schooled in the French education system from kindergarten to his current studies, he has lived in French-speaking countries for half of his life. He is a dual degree Ph.D. candidate in the programs of Communication, Culture, and Media at Drexel University and Urban and Regional Planning at the Laboratory of Cities, Mobility and Transportation (LVMT) of the Université Gustave Eiffel in Paris, France. Alejandro started his career working in consulting firms using quantitative techniques and GIS in territorial development and transportation studies while being involved on the side with community organizations interested in the environment and cycling. Serendipity changed his life. While in grad school in the transborder greater Geneva area, he joined a bike kitchen as a volunteer, and eventually became a board member of a national organization, l’Heureux Cyclage. Then, when he moved to Los Angeles for the fieldwork of his thesis a friendly chat with the bike commuter in charge of his admission file at UCLA changed the topic of his research to mobility justice, bike movements, and the relational networks furthering them in the context of ecological transitions. His research is centered on how the values and experiences of bike advocates shape the role and influence of bike movements in the circulation and implementation of practices and policies in French-speaking Europe, the US, and Latin America, by looking at how life histories and stories like his, are woven together into narratives that shape the culture and discourses of these transitions.
	Sienna Medina Email: sm4688@drexel.edu Research Interests: Media Psychology, Marxist Feminist Theory and Analysis , Popular Culture, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, Stan Culture and Parasocial Relationships Meet Sienna Education MS, West Chester University, General Psychology 2021 BA, Eastern University, Psychology 2019 Biography Sienna is a first-year PhD student in Drexel’s CCM program and a proud Delco native. While training to become a clinical psychologist, Sienna found that the relationship one has with media plays a key role in cognition, behavior, and treatment. She has since shifted her focus toward researching the intersection of psychological theory and media studies within a Marxist feminist framework. Recently, Sienna has been researching the gender politics and psychosexual media effects of pornography. In her free time, Sienna likes to watch HBO and play with her cats Cersei and Celeste.
	Sreyashi Mukherjee Email: sm3954@drexel.edu Research Interests: Postcolonial India and globalization, Semantics in advertising; Gender and agency, Identity in new media, Authenticity and globalization, Frankfurt School and critical studies Meet Sreyashi Education BA with Honors, English, Jadavpur University, 2012 https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreyashi-mukherjee-5ba9561b1/ Biography Sreyashi came to Drexel University from Kolkata, India, where she obtained her two degrees in English. Her time as a copy editor for The Telegraph, in the same city, augmented her interest in the use of code-mixing and production of consumer cultures in new media. She is currently a fifth-year PhD candidate, researching the postcolonial embodiment of gendered identities and agency in Indian advertising. Her dissertation is a multi-modal discourse analysis of advertisements from post-Independence to contemporary India. It tracks a historical transformation of advertising and identity through the intersection of political economy and social imaginary. She is a co-author of “You Can’t Force Someone to Want You”: Investigating Consent, Tokenism, and Play in Reality Dating Shows in The Forgotten Victims of Sexual Violence in Film, Television and New Media published by Palgrave Macmillan. She has previously worked on the discursive frames of video games and US mass school shootings in elite newspapers (pending publication). She is currently working on the adaptive translations for marketing Indian food and authenticity in the American restaurants.
	Dacia Pajé Email: dp932@drexel.edu Research Interests: Feminist Media Studies, Images and Discourses of Sexual Violence in Media, Rape Culture, Social Justice and Crime (Legal) Dramas, Legal and Courtroom Semiotics, Feminist Legal Studies, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis Meet Dacia Education MS in Communication for International Relations, IULM, 2016 BA in Law, University of Milan, 2014 https://www.linkedin.com/in/dacia-paj%C3%A9-78ba984a Biography Dacia came to Drexel University from Milan, Italy, where she obtained her BA in Law and her MA in Communication for International Relations. As a requirement for her masters’ degree, she took an internship in Washington, DC for the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK). During that time, she had the chance to collaborate with North Korean survivors and developed her interest for human rights and NGO’s communication. After this, she returned to Italy and started working part-time for a PR agency (Golin Italia) and a non-profit organization (Transparency International Italia). In 2019, she came back to the USA to attend the master’s program in CCM at Drexel University, where she is now a PhD Candidate. Her research agenda focuses on the televised construction of sexual violence and rape culture, with particular attention on the onscreen portrayals of courtrooms and their influence on the audience. She is also interested in the online discourse around rape culture and in legal discourses around sex crimes inside the courtroom.
	Maggie Riegel Email: msr342@drexel.edu Research Interests: Popular culture, Queer and gender theory, Critical race theory, Intersectionality, Horror studies Meet Maggie Education MA Certificate: Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Lehigh University, 2021 MA, Political Science, Lehigh University, 2012 BA, Political Science and Philosophy, Moravian University, 2010 Biography Maggie Riegel is a first year PhD student of Communication, Culture, and Media at Drexel University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and political science from Moravian University and a master’s degree in political science from Lehigh University. After working in the service industry and nonprofit world for several years, she returned to school in 2020 to complete a master’s certificate in women, gender, and sexuality studies from Lehigh University before enrolling at Drexel. Her research interests include gender and queer studies, critical race theory, feminist theory, horror studies, and other academic disciplines that challenges structures of power and hegemony. As an avid horror addict since childhood, her research explores intersectional identities of race, gender, sexuality, and disability within the popular television series, American Horror Story. At the Popular Culture Association conference in April 2022, she presented her first essay “Goddesses Don’t Speak in Whispers…They Scream: Queer Identity Construction and Visibility in American Horror Story” which examines several characters and cast members to illuminate the process by which queer subjects construct their identities, and how those identities are accentuated through avenues of visibility that contribute to important cultural conversations. She is the creator and administrator of an all-original American Horror Story meme page on Instagram, AHSFXmemes, and in her spare time, she enjoys painting, gardening, playing the violin, cooking elaborate meals, and taking care of her five cats. Selected Publications: “Sarah Paulson Doubles the Pleasure in ‘American Horror Story: Double Feature,’” PopHorror, 2022. https://www.pophorror.com/sarah-paulson-doubles-the-pleasure-in-american-horror-story-double-feature/ “Why it’s dangerous for our society to tolerate intolerance,” The Morning Call, 2022. https://www.mcall.com/opinion/mc-opi-capitol-attack-paradox-tolerance-riegel-20220118-qitk5nxabffftmgjsg6qcijogi-story.html
	Giuseppe Salomone Email: salomojj@drexel.edu Research Interests: Homosexuality and media effects, Intersectionality and the LGBTQA+ sectors, The LGBTQA+ experience and perspective, Sex and the city, Liminality, rites of passage and homosexuality, Media’s impact on the perceptions of gay culture, Media and the AIDS epidemic and its overall impact on the perception of gay males, The liminal states of gay male culture, The sociological Imagination, The performance and the looking glass self Meet Giuseppe Education PhD in Educational Leadership and Learning Technologies Post Baccalaureate Certificate in E-Learning Leadership Post Baccalaureate Certificate Public Health- LGBT Health MS in Communication, Culture and Media MSIS in Information Systems MS in Higher Education MS in E-Learning Leadership MS in Elementary and Secondary Education BA in Sociology BA in Anthropology BSBA in Business and Administration Biography Giuseppe has received most of his education from Drexel University. He is a gay activist and has worked on many committees and boards within and across Higher Education (including President of Drexel’s LGBTQA alumni group, the LGBTQA faculty and staff resource group and AACRAO’s LGBTQA+ caucus) to better the LGBTQA+ experience for faculty, staff, and students. His research domains center on media’s portrayal of gay culture and its impact on mainstream’s perception and acceptance of homosexuality. In his spare time, he enjoys music, science fiction graphic novels, vintage thrift shops and collecting vintage vinyl. He currently lives in the Graduate Hospital section of Philadelphia, with his partner Eric and their three chihuahuas, Farrah, Harper, and Winter.
	Ian Zimmermann Email: ibz23@drexel.edu Research Interests: Critical theory, Intercultural communication, Sound studies, (Post-)subcultural studies, Ethnography Meet Ian Education BA, Latin American Studies, Oberlin College, 2014 Biography Ian received his B.A. in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College (2014). A former ESL teacher and Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Brazil (Universidade Federal do Pará, 2015), he teaches courses in linguistics, intercultural communication, and public speaking. His dissertation research involves an ethnography of algorave, or algorithmically produced dance music.