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Nick Coffman
Email: nlc59@drexel.edu
Research Interests: Consumer Culture, Social Theory, Popular Culture, Social Media, Politics, Ethnography, Music Subculture
Education- MS, Drexel University, 2017
- BA, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 2012
BiographyNick
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.
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Luis Grande
Email: ig344@drexel.edu
Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence, Human-Machine Social Communication, Mediation technologies, Media ecology, Hyperreality, Media representation, Semiotics
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
BiographyLuis 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.
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Anya Kurennaya
Email: ask325@drexel.edu
Research Interests: Relationships between fashion, music, and youth culture; Design pedagogy; Language learner support
Education- MA, Fashion Studies, Parsons School of Design – The New School
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anya-kurennaya-9a9ab263
BiographyAnya 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.
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Alice Liu
Email: al3582@drexel.edu
Research Interests: Interpersonal relationships, Intercultural communication, Gender inequality, Dating culture, Chinese expatriate and Identity
Education- MA, University of Cincinnati, 2021
- BA, Truman State University, 2019
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-liu-755521136/
BiographyAlice 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.
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Greg Loring-Albright
Email: gsa33@drexel.edu
Research Interests: Analog games as media, Digital adaptation, Material media, Communication about/via games
Education
BiographyGreg 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."
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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
Education- BA, Communication Studies, Rowan University
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janna-macpherson-431213132
BiographyJanna 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.
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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
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/
BiographyAlejandro 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.
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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
Education- MS, West Chester University, General Psychology 2021
- BA, Eastern University, Psychology 2019
BiographySienna 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.
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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
Education- BA with Honors, English, Jadavpur University, 2012
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreyashi-mukherjee-5ba9561b1/
BiographySreyashi 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.
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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
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
BiographyDacia 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.
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Maggie Riegel
Email: msr342@drexel.edu
Research Interests: Popular culture, Queer and gender theory, Critical race theory, Intersectionality, Horror studies
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
BiographyMaggie 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. “Why it’s dangerous for our
society to tolerate intolerance,” The Morning Call, 2022.
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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
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
BiographyGiuseppe 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.
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Ian Zimmermann
Email: ibz23@drexel.edu
Research Interests: Critical theory, Intercultural communication, Sound studies, (Post-)subcultural studies, Ethnography
Education- BA, Latin American Studies, Oberlin College, 2014
BiographyIan 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.
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