News from the Department of Communication at Cornell University
Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Fall 2020/Spring 2021
2 Chair’s Letter 3 Building for Our Future 4 Undergrad News 8 Grad News 12 Department Initiatives 13 Lab News 14 Faculty News
Editor: Kelli Carr
Message from the Chair WHERE TO BEGIN? How about this time last year, when I was writing the chair’s letter for the last issue of the newsletter? We had left the office only three months before, and we were just beginning to settle into the uncertainty of what was to come. A summer of meetings to plan for an “unprecedented” fall led to a semester that quickly came to feel somewhat routine. And now we’re preparing to return to the office. Despite the many challenges—remote, hybrid, asynchronous teaching across multiple time zones; technological glitches; and Zoom fatigue, to name a few—faculty persevered. They taught most of their classes online, but several taught in person—one taught in virtual reality. (They also learned more than they thought possible about ADA compliance and Panopto.) They were immensely creative in developing engaged courses, diligent in connecting with students, and in a difficult year to conduct research, they developed unique and innovative methods. They also maintained a sense of humor, as you will see. Our staff likewise adapted, and they too took on additional responsibilities. Irina Bovt assumed the administrative duties for a second department. Joanna Alario and Kelli Carr became ADA remediation assistants to assist CALS faculty. Heather Crespin devoted both summer and fall to managing an enormously complicated course roster and advising students across the country and world. And Rebecca Tucker continued to support the Botanic Gardens, along with her duties to the Communication and American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program. The students were amazing. They rose to the technological, pedagogical, and emotional challenges of an education unlike most had ever experienced. We were incredibly proud to graduate 83 undergraduate Communication and six interdisciplinary students. Despite many obstacles, graduate students continued their progress toward their degrees. They published, presented conference papers, won grants 2 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
and awards, gave media interviews, and in a very competitive market, they got jobs. In other news, we are conducting a search for a tenure-track assistant professor, with interviews taking place in the fall. Historically, we have targeted scholars in specific communication areas, but for this search, we are casting our net wide with a general search. Dawn Schrader is ably chairing the search committee, consisting of Neil Lewis, Jr., Katherine Sender, Chelsea Butkowski, and Lori Leonard. I have one more announcement. As of June 30, I will be stepping down from the position of chair, so let me take this opportunity to thank the many people who helped make this job both rewarding and possible. To the extraordinary faculty and staff, our engaged alumni, our devoted Communication Advisory Board, and our remarkable students, I am deeply grateful to all of you. Finally, I am delighted to introduce our incoming chair, Professor Lee Humphreys. Lee is a global expert in media studies. Her exceptional research has garnered her the CALS Alumni Association’s Rising Star Faculty Award, a Cornell Center for the Social Sciences Fellowship, and multiple grants totaling nearly $1.9 million. In recent years, she served as Director of Undergraduate Studies and Inaugural Director of the COMM-Unity Peer Mentorship Program. She is the Founding Director of Cornell’s Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute and a member of the Provost’s Advisory Board on Critical Inquiry into Values, Imagination & Culture. She helped shape our field, serving as co-chair of the International Communication Association’s Ethics Task Force and lead author on its Code of Ethics. Lee is also a multiple award-winning teacher. Most importantly—she’s a Cornell Department of Communication alumna! Lee is incredibly visionary about the bright future of our department. Please join me in welcoming her to the Chair’s office. Wishing you a lovely summer!
Building for Our Future
Would you like to name a space for yourself, a designee, or organization? We have many opportunities! Contact Lee Humphreys at lmh13@cornell.edu about funding opportunities.
The Hub
$1,000,000
Flex/Shared Research Space
$350,000
Intercultural Comm Lab
$325,000
Northwest Team Space
$125,000
Media Effects Lab
$200,000
Northeast Team Space
$125,000
Central Flex Space
$250,000
Research Interactive Display
$125,000
Graduate Stations (2–8 Students each) $75–125,000 Faculty Offices (22)
$75,000
Research Team Space
$100,000
Research Carrels (single or group)
$50–75,000
Did you know? After 15 months away from the department, we’re heading back soon! We are scheduled to return to our offices starting in August. Fall 2020/Spring 2021 3
Undergraduate Student News Congratulations to Fall 2020 and Spring & Summer 2021 Graduates! IDS: Interdisciplinary Studies
Jewel Alston IDS
Oscar Hamilton
Grace Royer
Isabella Armas-Leon James Baccile Harrison Bardwell Hudson Belinsky Alexander Bontzolakes Natalie Bronfin Sarah Castor Raphael Chierchio Benson Child Eunice Cho Jeremy Coyle Jocelyne Cruz Emily Dawson Mary deLisser Kepler Despinos Annaklara Doel Meredith Doppelt Caroline Dunetz Alexandra Ellis Anjuli Fink Christabella Forest Nikita Forrester Finley Frechette Xing Gao Eliza Goldberg Drew Goldberg Luca Greenspun Katie Hale Emily Halperin
Matthew Harris Karlye Heavey Julia Hill Lilly Howes Alice Kang Audra Kim Woojoo Kim Sam Law Da Hyun Lee Mia SeungEun Lee Grace Lee Ge Liang Daniel Maher Olivia May IDS Mckenna Mellon Julia Mills Tiamen Montgomery Natalie Monticello Isabella Murdy IDS Dami Odunowo Elana Orfield Timothy O'Rourke IDS Grace Paletta Luke Park Devonte Parker IDS Ana Rahman Gabrielle Roitman Ariel Roldan Alex Rosenberg
Daniela Saglimbeni Seoyeon Shin Olivia Silberstein Nicolas Sommer Kate Sramac Skye Stewart Mata Stilp Fredy Stroker IDS Wei Sun Yohann Surti Aminah Taariq-Sidibe Jeff Teat Piper Torpey Daniel Trimbur Hannah Urken Annastassia Vera Julia Vitarelli John Walter Yifei Wang Alston Wang Anne Weiss Hunter Wilkinson Tolani Yesufu Tianke Zhao Tianshi Zhao Wenqi Zhuang Amelia Zohore Harris Zweig
4 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Undergraduate News Awards, Honors & Scholarships
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With the generous support of our alumni, the Summer Grant Program provided monetary assistance to students with unpaid summer internships. The grants, $1500 each, allow students to pursue opportunities that would otherwise be cost prohibitive. Lauren Baldinger, Public Relations Intern, LoveShackFancy Megan Cleary, Global Climate Pledge Research and Communications Associate, U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce Sydney Gough, Development Intern, Zero Gravity Management Jade Ovadia, Special Campaign Assistant and Social Media Intern Office of Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney Kayla Riggs, Marketing Intern, The Women’s Network Jacob Ritter, Intern, Shareitt, part of the Onward Israel Program
Fall 2020/Spring 2021 5
Undergraduate News Awards, Honors & Scholarships, continued In light of last year’s challenges, we reimagined our annual Woodford Persuasive Speaking Contest and 1886 Prize for Persuasive Speech! Historically, they were awarded to the top 5 speakers in the Oral Communication course in the Fall and Spring semesters, respectively. This year the Prizes were divided among the 16 sections of the course, allowing each section to award prizes to its top speaker or speakers. In total, 19 students were honored by their classmates. Thanks to the thoughtfulness and generosity of Stewart Lyndon Woodford, congressperson and Lieutenant Governor of NY who established the Woodford Prize 1870, and a gift from the Cornell graduating class of 1886, prize winners shared $6,000. Ethan Bachert
Megan Goyette
Sarah Rappazzo
Benayas Begashaw
Robin Kim
Abigail Reing
Rebecca Davidson
Pippa Kok
Kate Schrage
David Dayan
Izabelle Kwan
Jake Stebbins
Ravi Dhawan
Joyce Lee
Emily Wolfman
Ella de Bruijn
Mikaela Matera-Vatnick
Caitlin Yang
Toby Diamond
Jenny Zwigard
The Department of Communication awarded ten students more than $23,000 in scholarships. We received many applications, all exceptional. We want to give special thanks to our donors for helping us recognize these deserving students. Edward L. Bernays Primus Inter Pares Award: Natalie Bronfin Bernays awards are given to students who demonstrate outstanding achievement and participation in the area of Public Relations and complete a superior essay. The award commemorates the “Father of Public Relations,” Edward Bernays ‘12. Kenneth J. Bissett Award: Seoyeon Shin Bissett awards are given to students with the best portfolio of design and written material. The award commemorates Kenneth Bissett, Cornell class of ‘90 and a participant in the Syracuse-in-London program for study abroad, who was aboard Pan Am Flight 103 when it was destroyed by terrorists. Chester Freeman Award: Stephen Yang Freeman awards, established in the name of a late Communication Professor Emeritus, recognize juniors who best exhibit the interdisciplinary character of the Communication Department. Anson H. Rowe Award: Alexandria Kirby-Williams, Kate Sramac & Tianke Zhao Rowe awards are given to seniors and juniors majoring in Communication, with preference given to students specializing in interpersonal communication, public speaking, radio, or television. Alfred N. Schwartz Award: Carson Miller Schwartz awards promote excellence in agricultural journalism and are open to CALS students. Sheila Turner Seed Award: Gillian Harrill & Onalee Duane Seed awards are given to junior women communication majors. Sheila Turner Seed was a young writer and photo-journalist who died suddenly. 6 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Undergraduate News Awards, Honors & Scholarships, continued Congratulations to the following students who wrote senior honors theses! Natalie Monticello, "Understanding the Role of Environmental Attitudes in Voter Preference in the 2020 Presidential Election." Natalie is a double major in Communication and Environment and Sustainability. Gabrielle Roitman, "Children's Understandings of Disney Princesses and Gender Roles." Seoyeon Shin, "Chinese Virus? Kung Flu? Racial Biases and Bad Humor in Coronavirus Coverage." Yifei Wang, “Implanted Labels”: Web Searches in Red and Blue States Correlate with Global Warming Beliefs from Survey Data." Tianshi Zhao, "Different Dimensions of Fairness Concern in Climate Change Discourse on Twitter."
COMM-Unity Project IN 2019, WE DEVELOPED an undergraduate peer mentoring program to support and guide Black, Indigenous, Latinx, People of Color, and firstgeneration communication majors. And in fall 2020—in the midst of a pandemic—the department welcomed its inaugural class of peer mentors. In spring 2020, we asked faculty members to nominate Black, Indigenous, and People of Color advisees. The process worked very well; everyone who was invited to participate joined the program. Although the college had already developed a peer mentoring program addressing first-generation students, we designed our program to address inclusion among first-generation and underrepresented minority students. The overarching goals of our program are to share tacit knowledge, create early and equitable access to resources, reduce barriers, and help students build a sense of community. In partnership with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Peer Mentorship program, COMM -Unity Project peer mentors received training through a one-credit course, “Leadership through
Peer Mentorship.” Key topics included active listening, social identity and belonging, mental health and resiliency, and time management and learning strategies. At the end of the semester, the faculty director, mentors, and mentees participated in an online, evening social event, which included playing skribbl.io (an online Pictionary-like game) to help mentees get to know each other and celebrate the end of their first semester at Cornell. In fall 2021, the Department of Communication will offer its own course, “Leading by Mentoring: Being a COMMUnity Mentor.” We’re pleased to note that we nearly doubled the number of peer mentors, with nine committed for the fall. In recognition of their service and leadership—all the more remarkable in such a challenging year— our peer mentors received graduation honors cords. To our dedicated inaugural class of mentors, Christabella Forest, Alexandria Kirby-Williams, Stephanie Lim, Marie Mendy, and Stephen Yang, the Department of Communication offers you its most sincere thanks! Fall 2020/Spring 2021 7
Graduate Student News Awards & Grants The CALS Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award recognizes graduate teaching assistants who have provided invaluable support to students and faculty. Megan Sawey, Vincent Chau Yu The Glass Family Fellowship, established in honor of esteemed Department of Communication professor emeritus Royal Colle, recognizes a graduate student who exemplifies leadership and service to the graduate field, department, and Cornell University. Colten Meisner The Anson E. Rowe Award recognizes graduate students (one advanced and late career, the other promising and early career) who have shown excellence in research and teaching, and have contributed to the communication field. Advanced: Chelsea Butkowski, Promising: Angel Hsing-Chi Hwang
Milestones 2nd-Year Projects • Aparajita Bhandari: An Online "Home" for the Homeless: A Content Analysis of the Subreddit R/homeless • Chelsea Butkowski: “If You Didn’t Take a Selfie, Did You Even Vote?” Embodied Mass Communication • • • •
and Shifting Citizenships in “I Voted” Selfies Bharathy Premachandra: The Communication-Implementation Gap: What Researchers Report and What Practitioners Need Megan Sawey: "Put Yourself Out There": The (Gendered) Youth Empowerment Ideologies of Campus Brand Ambassador Programs Yiwei Xu: Testing Strategies to Increase Source Credibility through Strategic Message Design in the Context of Vaccination and Vaccine Hesitancy Congcong Zhang: Is Self-Enhancement Culturally Specific? A Meta-Analysis of SelfEnhancement under East Asian versus Western Contexts 2nd-Year Projects during a pandemic? We’ve got this!
Jobs! • Oliver Ngai Keung Chan will begin his career this fall as a tenure-track assistant professor in the School
of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. • Chau (Vincent) Yu will be a visiting lecturer in Cornell’s Department of Communication during the 2021–2022 academic year. 8 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Graduate News Milestones, continued A Exams It was quite a year for A Exams! Congratulations to the nine students who passed their A Exams, which consist of a written examination and an open oral examination by the Special Committee, with specific details arranged in advance between the students and committee. Upon passing the A exam students are admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. Aparajita Bhandari Salma El idrissi Mandy Purington Chelsea Butkowski Cat Lambert Melissa Seipel Wen Duan Swati Pandita Yiwei Xu
B Exams We have two new doctors! The following students passed their B Exams, the final hurdle for Ph.D. candidates. Also known as the dissertation defense, the B Exam is an oral examination based on the dissertation. During the examination, students present their dissertation work in a public forum, with opportunities for questions by the special committee and other graduate faculty. Oliver Ngai Keung Chan, “Managing Algorithmic Metrics and Customers: A Multi-Case Study of Labor Control and Resistance in the Gig Economy” Shruti Sannon, “Workers at the Margins: Risks and Opportunities for Marginalized Workers in Digitally-Mediated Labor.”
What does a dog receive after finishing the Ph.D.? A pet-degree. What do you call an owl with a Ph.D.? Dr. Who. Fall 2020/Spring 2021 9
Graduate News News Grad students were on fire again this year! Chelsea Butkowski • Chelsea is publishing “If You Didn’t Take a Selfie, Did You Even Vote?” Embodied Mass Communication
and Citizenship Models in “I Voted” Selfies” in New Media & Society. • She delivered two conference papers: “’I Voted’ Stickers As Civic Evidence” for the Media Objects
Conference, and “Can’t, Won’t, Don’t Vote: Networked Non-Voter Narrative during the 2016 Election” at the International Communication Association annual conference. “Can’t, Won’t, Don’t Vote” won the Top Student Paper Panel in the Political Communication Division. • Chelsea also received the Anson E. Rowe Award for advanced graduate students.
Oliver Ngai Keung Chan • Oliver published two journal articles: “Anticipatory Futures: Framing the Socio-Technical Visions of
Online Ratings and Reviews in Wired” in Culture & Critique, and “Guerilla Capitalism and the Platform Economy: Governing Uber in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong” in Information, Communication & Society. • He delivered two conference papers: “Towards a Political Theory of Data Justice: A Public Good
Perspective” and “Guerilla Capitalism and the Platform Economy: Governing Uber in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong,” both at the Association of Internet Researchers annual conference. “Guerilla Capitalism and the Platform Economy” won the AoIR Best Student Paper Award. • In fall 2021, Oliver will begin a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and
Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Angel Hwang • Angel published her second-year project, “IdeaBot: Investigating Social Facilitation in Human-Machine
Team Creativity,” in the Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The paper received an Honorable Mention at the conference. • She also received the Anson E. Rowe Award for promising graduate students. • In collaboration with other Comm students, Angel received a $1000 Media Studies Working Group grant.
Catherine Lambert • Cat has an article accepted in Sustainability: “Eroding Land and Erasing Place: A Qualitative Study of
Place Attachment, Risk Perception, and Coastal Land Loss in Southern Louisiana.” • She delivered two refereed conference papers: “Public Attitudes towards Enhanced Geothermal Heating:
The Role of Place, Community, and Visions of Energy Futures” at the Geothermal Resource Council annual meeting, and “Beneath Our Feet: Depictions of Risk, Dread, and Visions of the Future in Media Coverage of Enhanced Geothermal Energy” at the Association for Education, Journalism, and Mass Communication annual meeting. • She also delivered the conference presentation “’It’s Bigger Than Us’: Inevitable Risk, Place Attachment,
and Coastal Land Loss in Southern Louisiana” at the Society for Risk Analysis annual meeting. • Cat received a $25,000 National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant from the Decision,
Risk, and Management Sciences Program to funder her dissertation project, “Case Studies of Enhanced Geothermal Systems: Interactions of Place and Energy Imaginaries.”
10 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Graduate News Colten Meisner • Colten published two articles: “Participatory Branding on Social Media: The Affordances of Live Streaming
for Creative Labor” in New Media & Society, and “Extending the Personal Branding Affordances Typology to Parasocial Interaction with Public Figures on Social Media: Social Presence and Multiplexity As Mediators” in Computers in Human Behavior. • He delivered three conference papers: “The Labor of Search Quality Rating: Making Algorithms More
Human or Humans More Algorithmic” at the International Communication Association annual conference; “Extending the Personal Branding Affordances Typology to Parasocial Interaction with Celebrities on Social Media: Social Presence and Multiplexity As Mediators” at the National Communication Association annual conference; and “What Do You Weigh? Popular Feminism and Body Positivity As Mediated Disembodiment” at the Association of Internet Researchers annual conference. “The Labor of Search Quality Rating” won Top Student-Led Paper Award from ICA’s Media Industry Studies Group; “Extending the Personal Branding Affordances” won a Top 3 Paper Award from the NCA’s Communication & Technology Division. • Colten was interviewed about his “participatory branding” study by the ad/creative firm Canvas8, which
published the interview and a synthesis of the research. Swati Pandita • Swati presented a paper at the International Communication Association’s annual conference, “The
Paradox of Customization: Negotiating Racial Identity with ‘Multiple Choice’ in Avatar Creation.” She also participated in an ICA research discussion, presenting her solo-authored research paper, “Mechanisms of Care: The Importance of Routine for Mental Healthcare in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Please Retain a Record of This Message.” • In collaboration with other Comm students, she received a $1000 Media Studies Working Group grant. • Swati passed her A Exam and is working on her dissertation related to designing embodied virtual
experiences for improving Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders mental health. Megan Sawey • Megan is publishing “The Nested Precarities of Platoformized Creative Labor” in Social Media + Society. • She delivered a paper to the International Communication Association annual conference entitled
"Care on Campus? The Commodification of Social Relationships in College Brand Ambassador Programs.” • She was accepted as Project Lead for an early-stage work called “Anti-MLM Creators: Examining Multi-
Level Marketing Resistance on Social Media,” which she presented at a Data & Society workshop. • Megan received a CALS Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.
Chao (Vincent) Yu • Vincent published “The Disproportion of Crowd Wisdom: The Impact of Status Seeking on Yelp Reviews”
in PLoS One. • He delivered two papers at the International Communication Association’s annual conference: “The
Power of Endorsement: Visual, Environmental and Endorsement Cues to Racial Homophily on Airbnb” and “Two Contradictory Strategies of Curbing Biases: How Reducing and Promoting Personal Contact Help Reduce Homophily Biases on Airbnb.” • Vincent received a CALS Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. • In fall 2021, Vincent will begin a Visiting Lectureship in the Department of Communication. Fall 2020/Spring 2021 11
Department Initiatives Diversity, Equity, Inclusion We have been very successful in achieving our goals of implementing a comprehensive diversity, equity, and inclusion plan. Following are our achievements, our goals for the coming year, and recently identified issues still to be addressed. Achievements • We conducted an internal survey of faculty, staff, and graduate students about our department’s climate, with results showing general approval of our internal environment. Two issues raised by students were lack of diversity of People of Color faculty and staff and lack of BIPOC scholarship in teaching. • We drafted and revised texts for the department’s new DEI webpage, which includes initiatives and resources. • We formed a book club to read How to be an Antiracist, which was useful in preparing faculty for difficult classroom conversations. • During our annual retreat, we discussed DEI objectives and actions, outlining initiatives for both the undergraduate and graduate committees. • The Graduate Program Committee focused its DEI initiatives on increasing the recruitment of underrepresented minority (URM) students, resulting in a more diverse applicant pool and two URM offers. • The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee created a syllabus diversity statement and compiled a list of social science concepts and in-class activities useful for teaching DEI concepts. They urged faculty to incorporate readings by POC scholars and incorporate assignments that reflect on DEI issues. • We invited university DEI leaders to share the Cornell’s DEI visions and data about our undergraduate students’ sense of belonging. We were surprised that transfer students are more satisfied with their Cornell experiences than our regularly admitted students are. We are exploring ways to help regularly admitted students feel a stronger sense of belonging to our department. • We launched the COMM-Unity Program. (See page 7.) • We incorporated 15 to 20-minute DEI training sessions into our faculty meetings. Goals for the summer and upcoming academic year • We are resuming the summer book club. • We are focusing on matriculating URM and first-gen undergraduate students. • We will attend the URM graduate recruitment virtual fair again this year. We aim to maintain a similar level of increase in the diversity of candidates in the new academic year. • For our new faculty search this fall, we are actively working to encourage a diverse applicant pool. Issues to be addressed • How do we better support students with disabilities? • How do we better mentor students? • How do we handle difficult conversations in classrooms? • How do we diversify our pool of applicants in our recruitment of faculty, students, and staff? • How do we support faculty of color without increasing their emotional labor burden? • How do we contribute to a positive climate for members of URM groups in our department and at the university?
12 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Lab News Social Media Lab MIDDLE SCHOOL-AGED YOUTH in 4-H are participating in a study evaluating the effectiveness of Social Media TestDrive. Developed by the Social Media Lab in collaboration with Common Sense Education (with support from the Morgan Family Foundation), Social Media TestDrive is an online educational program designed to teach young people how to use social media in ways that are positive, safe, and prosocial. The current study is evaluating differences in social media literacy knowledge between young people who have completed Social Media TestDrive modules and those with no social media literacy education. 4-H has been a longstanding collaborator with the TestDrive project, helping shape the design and content of modules and providing iterative feedback as modules were created over the last few years. Grad student and lab member, Amanda Purington, has incorporated this project into her dissertation work. Amanda and the TestDrive team anticipate finding significant and meaningful differences in knowledge due to Social Media TestDrive modules. Once a difference in knowledge is established, the investigators will evaluate differences in attitudes, perceptions of norms, behavioral intentions, and behaviors. If the anticipated results are obtained, the studies will show the effectiveness of Social Media TestDrive modules in increasing social media literacy and impacting behavior on social media for this age group. A 4-H student participates in the TestDrive study.
Virtual Embodiment Lab FOLLOWING THE PANDEMIC SHUTDOWN, the Virtual Embodiment Lab collaborated to reimagine and deploy new online research projects to ensure graduate students could produce at least one publication or conference presentation in 2020. Angel Hwang’s paper, “IdeaBot: Investigating Social Facilitation in Human-Machine Team Creativity,” is one such example. Published in the Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,” the paper received an Honorable Mention Award at the International Communication Association annual conference. In another example, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Georgia and Michigan State University, Angel, fellow grad student Swati Pandita, and Assistant Professor Andrea Stevenson Won interviewed participants about their experiences at virtual conferences. Lab members presented a paper on this research at ICA, and Swati delivered a presentation. In response to teaching challenges in a pandemic world, Andrea and co-authors published “Work-inProgress—Learning about Virtual Worlds in Virtual Worlds: How Remote Learning in a Pandemic Can Inform Future Teaching.” Their research showed that after universities shifted to remote learning, in some cases, this requirement intersected in productive ways with course content—especially when the course included virtual environments. The article describes experiences in a virtual worlds communication course, where field trips and guest lectures provided novel opportunities for instructors and students to connect, and it posits how this will inform the design of future courses combining face-to-face and virtual instruction. In this virtual class, a guest speaker (in the top hat) interacts with students during a “field trip.” Fall 2020/Spring 2021 13
Faculty & Academic Staff News
Faculty News
EACH SPRING, WE ASK FACULTY to provide their greatest accomplishments from the year, and we’re always impressed by the volume and quality of their achievements. But this year was not...typical, so in response, we took a different approach. We shifted our focus from how much and how public to the innovative ways we continued to excel as teachers, mentors, and scholars during incredibly challenging times. Most importantly, we rethought just what an accomplishment is, recognizing that our most important efforts were not necessarily in the spotlight. So, while publications, grants, and awards are still featured, you will also see an emphasis on developing classes, rethinking pedagogy and mentoring students, and other creative responses to teaching and research challenges. We invite you to share in our many triumphs, as you read what we can achieve at the most challenging times. What a COMMunity! 14 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Faculty & Academic Staff News • DIANE BAILEY co-authored “Beyond Design and Use:
How Scholars Should Study Intelligent Technologies” in Information and Organization and “Translating National Discourse into Teaching and Learning Outcomes: Portability and Connectivity in Developing Countries’ ICT in Education Initiatives” in New Media and Society. • In collaboration with colleagues at eight universities and two institutions, she submitted a $20 million grant proposal to the National Science Foundation Artificial Intelligence Institute on Human-AI Communication. • She was co-nominated for a Carolyn P. Dexter Award for best international paper from the Organizational Communication and Information Systems division of the Academy of Management. • She redesigned the Visual Communication course with emphasis on a visual language and analytical framework to apply to recent events (for example, Black Lives Matter protests, body positivity, Detroit housing, Chicago shootings, the Israel -Palestine conflicts, Capitol storming, and pandemic).
• DOMINIC BALOG-WAY
established a virtual Risk Communication Forum with 40 faculty members and Ph.D. students from 13 universities in the U.S. and Europe, in order to stay connected, collaborate, and introduce grad students to colleagues. The forum is currently expanding its membership. • He was first author on four journal articles and presented five virtual conference papers. • He is co-author of “Reflections on Trust, Tradeoffs, and Preparedness” for the Journal of Risk Research, a reflection piece on the pandemic. It became one of the top ten most read articles in the journal’s 23-year history. • He served as a policy expert for the Informal Working Group on Risk Communication, which reported to the UK Cabinet.
• NATALIE BAZAROVA co-authored an article for the Proceedings of the 2021 CHI
Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems and five journal articles. • She redesigned the Social Technology and Behavior course in order to make it more engaging during the pandemic. This included a fantastic lineup of guest speakers, including six Airbnb researchers who served as mentors to students throughout the semester as they worked on team projects. • She wrapped up a three-year collaborative project funded by the Cornell Center for the Social Sciences culminating in a new grant proposal. • Natalie and her lab received a $300,000 Morgan Family Foundation grant to evaluate the effectiveness of Social Media TestDrive. (See page 13.) And she received a $106,000 Facebook Privacy Award to develop novel interventions for diverse populations, contexts, and data types.
Fall 2020/Spring 2021 15
Faculty & Academic Staff News • CHRISTOPHER BYRNE was elected Co-Chair of the CALS Support of
Teaching and Learning Committee. • He successfully adapted to the pandemic by responding to the challenges
of online teaching and adjusting to safety restrictions and classroom technology for the several sections he taught in person. • And Christopher was promoted to Senior Lecturer!
• SAHARA BYRNE was appointed Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and
Strategic Programs in CALS. • She completed her term as Inaugural Co-Director of the Cornell Center for
Social Sciences. • Sahara served on the Cornell Public Safety Advisory Committee, providing
advisement and review of CUPD and other Cornell Safety units. • She taught Introduction to Communication in two modes: online with an
asynchronous component and in person.
• LAUREN CHAMBLISS taught courses online and,
during the fall semester, in person. • She taught three courses during Summer Session, which unexpectedly went from in-person to online. • She wrote 12 letters of recommendation and all 12 students got their dream jobs or were accepted into top-ranked graduate programs!
• JODI COHEN received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching,
which recognizes expertise, dedication, and professional achievement. • She taught eight sections of Oral Communication each semester, including an asynchronous section for international students in their home countries.
Following is a “by the numbers” view of our faculty’s accomplishments. Journal articles and chapters: 113 Books: 2 Grants #: 21, worth $7,163,000 Awards: 7 16 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Faculty & Academic Staff News • BROOKE DUFFY finalized and submitted the manuscript for Platforms
& Cultural Production, a co-authored book due in the fall. • She co-authored ”The Nested Precarities of Creative Labor in Social
Media,” forthcoming in Social Media & Society. The research was funded by the Cornell Center for the Social Sciences’ “Algorithms, Big Data, and Inequality” grant. • She was quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Vox, The Guardian, CNET, and she published a long-form essay with Vox. • Brooke delivered several virtual international talks, including a keynote at Shih-Hsin University and invited talks at the Danish School of Media & Journalism, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (France), and the DigiLabour network (Brazil) .
• As part of a New
• DANIELLE EISEMAN co-published Our Changing
Menu, exploring the complex relationships between food and climate change, and two journal articles. • After taking Cornell training courses on diversity and inclusion, she redesigned her courses in more inclusive ways; student feedback indicated she was successful in creating a sense of community, even online. She also experimented with Clubhouse, an audio-only social app, where students noted they felt more comfortable participating in discussions without video. • She taught Risk Communication during Winter Session due to demand; 15 students took the course over the winter break. • In collaboration with former students, Danielle is conducting research on environmental influencers on Instagram—and she’s mentoring a Bronx High School of Science student on a project that builds on the Instagram research.
York State public health effort, AMELIA GREINER SAFI helped with county-wide efforts to understand solutions to disparities in cancer screening. • She also trained practitioners from around the globe on theory-informed, strategic public health communication on vector-borne disease control and One Health. • And Amelia helped Cornell’s Master of Public Health program design the curriculum for the Governor’s New York State Citizen Public Health Training and Public Health Fellows Training Program (for 2,000 Fellows). All told, she developed 18 training modules on topics such as misinformation, racism in health care, health literacy, vaccine hesitancy, and community engagement. • She received three collaborative grants totaling $102,000.
Fall 2020/Spring 2021 17
Faculty & Academic Staff News • LEE HUMPHREYS launched the Cornell Center for the Social Sciences’
cross-disciplinary initiative, Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute. In the last year, it held six seminars, funded 25 research grants, and four working groups. • She published “Mobiles in Public: Social Interaction in a Smartphone Era” in Mobile Media & Communication, replicating research from 15 years ago and revealing similarities and changes in how we engage with smartphones—and it shows they don’t just lead to phubbing (ignoring companions in order to pay attention mobile devices). She also published “Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Temporalities: Or How the Past Is Represented As Relevant through On-This-Date Media” in New Media & Society, comparing social media memories and birthdays to anniversaries of historical events represented in media. • In Lee’s own words, “I feel like I tried my hardest to support my students in class not only in their academic work, but also as people who are trying to go to school during a pandemic.” • She received a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant for the project “Toward a Statewide Public Internet of Things (IoT) Network for a Resilient Rural-Urban System.”
• NEIL LEWIS, JR., won two early career awards: the
• BRUCE LEWENSTEIN co-edited Communicating Science:
A Global Perspective. The free-to-download publication was downloaded 10,000 times in the first three weeks after publication—a record for the Australian National University Press! • He published three journal articles and one book chapter, and his 2010 book chapter, “A Critical Evaluation of Science General Understanding Models: Use Practice to be Aware of Theories” was published in Portuguese and Farsi. • He was a commentor on virtual panels in China and at the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. • Bruce cited supporting his students and colleagues in dealing with remote learning and teaching as his most important accomplishment.
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SAGE Young Scholar Award and the Early Career Award (both from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology), and he received mentoring awards from Cornell’s Graduate School and the University of Michigan. • He is a new contributor to FiveThirtyEight. His first article, "Why Coming Up with Effective Interventions to Address COVID-19 is So Hard," received the Best Popular Science Article award from the Center for Advanced Hindsight. • He served on COVID-19 task forces at the local, state, and federal levels, and he participated in his first White House Briefing. • Three of Neil’s Ph.D. advisees published their (Emoji emphasis is Neil’s). first papers.
Faculty & Academic Staff News • DREW MARGOLIN is a co• JIAWEI LIU
co-published three articles: “Misperceptions of the Prevalence of Health Conditions and Behaviors” in the Journal of Health Communication; “Effects of Communicating Prevalence Information about Two Common Health Conditions” in Health Communication; and “Campaign Advertising and the Cultivation of Crime Worry: Testing Relationships with Two Large Datasets from the 2016 U.S. Election Cycle” in The International Journal of Press/Politics. • The Upworthy Research Archive, led by NATHAN
MATIAS, has been accepted for publication by Nature Scientific Data. Approximately 50 teams are now working with this dataset of tens of thousands of behavioral studies. • He is publishing “Can Adaptive Algorithms Discover Scientific Nuance within Interventions?” with the Usenix Security Symposium. • He received a $1 million Templeton World Charity Foundation grant to test ways to improve online dialogue and knowledge creation. He also received a $300,00 MacArthur Foundation grant for efforts to strengthen participation and discourse by marginalized voices, improve civic discourse during political conflict, and scale citizen science audits. • He circumnavigated Cayuga Lake on his bike.
recipient of a $1.5 million National Cancer Institute grant for the research project, “Using Natural Language Processing and Crowdsourcing to Monitor and Evaluate Public Information and Communication Disparities about Colon Cancer Screening.” • He published two articles: “Comparing Audience Appreciation to Fact-Checking Across Political Communities on Reddit” in 12th ACM Conference on Web Science, and “The Disproportion of Crowd Wisdom: The Impact of Status Seeking on Yelp Reviews” in PLoS ONE. • He was named Most Influential Academic Mentor to a Merrill Presidential Scholar (Yunyun Wang). • Drew cited his biggest accomplishment as serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies, in particular, working with faculty and Undergraduate Program Coordinator Heather Crespin, to rebuild the course roster for the pandemic.
• KATHERINE MCCOMAS
became a member of the 4th New York City Panel on Climate Change, and she is co-chairing the Working Group on Shared Methods and Cross-Cutting Issues. • She published articles in the Journal of Risk Research and Risk Analysis. • She is a co-recipient of a $127,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for the project “Developing a Research-based Digital Media Campaign to Reduce the Risks of Chronic Wasting Disease.” • Among her most significant events of the year, she cites advisee Jason Holley’s Ph.D. completion. Fall 2020/Spring 2021 19
Faculty & Academic Staff News • POPPY MCLEOD has two forthcoming co-authored publications in The Handbook of Group and Team
Communication Research: “Diversity and Team Communication: A Critical Review and Call for Broadened Representation” and “How Has Technology Changed Group Communication? A Keyword Analysis of Research on Groups and Technology.” • She led five graduation processions as university marshal. (See picture below.) • Editor’s note: She chaired the Department of Communication through arguably the most challenging year our faculty, staff, and students have ever experienced, and she did so with grace, strength, and a reassuring confidence that our COMMunity would survive—indeed thrive. POPPY WILL END HER TERM as Chair of the Department of Communication at the end of June. In summer 2017, she kindly undertook a one-year position as interim chair while Katherine McComas took a sabbatical. When Katherine was named Vice Provost, Poppy agreed to remain in the position. In her fouryear term, she has been a strong advocate for the department, and she’s been incredibly successful in her initiatives. To name but a few of her accomplishments: she oversaw job searches resulting in four new faculty hires; she managed 18 reappointment, tenure, and promotion cases; she spearheaded a drive to expand and diversify our Advisory Board, led the draft of its charter, and instituted the career, development, and membership committees; and she’s currently overseeing the department’s internal report in advance of our external review. And she confidently guided the department through a global pandemic. She accomplished this while teaching, advising, researching, and leading a lab of approximately 20 students. Thank you, Poppy. We wish you all the best as you return to the “ranks.”
• JEFF NIEDERDEPPE published two articles whose research was funded by Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation grants: “Evidence-Based Message Strategies to Increase Public Support for State Investment in Early Childhood Education: Results from a Longitudinal Panel Experiment” in Milbank Quarterly, and “Exposure to Televised Campaign Advertisements Aired in the United States 2015–2016 Election Cycle and Psychological Distress” in Social Science and Medicine. • As Co-Director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, he helped develop the Social Science and National Institutes of Health Grant Writing Development Program, which funded 16 social scientists to enhance the likelihood of grant writing success. • Jeff and collaborators received a $1.5 million National Cancer Institute grant for a project on effective messaging to promote colorectal cancer screening and reduce racial disparities in colon cancer. • As Director of Graduate Studies, he helped facilitate admissions review and recruitment innovations to enhance the diversity of our applicant pool, in particular, outstanding candidates from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. 20 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
Faculty & Academic Staff News • NORMAN PORTICELLA completed data collection with the Mobile
Lab for a clinical trial of cigarette package cessation messaging. • As part of his ScienceHub initiative, he brought social scientists together with local food-security and health organizations to improve the distribution of food and information during the pandemic. • For another ScienceHub project, he’s leading a three-year collaborative project to enhance efforts to address human and environmental health across five counties, funded by a $87,000 U.S. Department of AgricultureNational Institute of Food and Agriculture Smith-Lever Act Capacity Grant. • He published two journal articles. He also published two reports to local food and health organizations, which informed their work during the COVID-19 outbreak.
• DAWN SCHRADER delivered two conference papers
(virtually) at the Association for Moral Education annual conference. She will be delivering another paper at the rescheduled annual meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. • She is chairing a departmental committee for an open-area assistant professor search. • Dawn is the newly elected chair of the Moral Development and Education division of the American Educational Research Association. • She responded to the pandemic by redesigning her courses to address relevant material. For Communicating Leadership Ethics, she focused on topics that challenged leaders, such as social interactions, networking, ethical uses of tech, worklife balance, and other the new workplace norms.
• JON SCHULDT was
awarded a $192,000 National Science Foundation grant to study social bias during the COVID-19 crisis and $10,000 Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability grant to study links between COVID-19 and public support for conservation efforts. • He published four papers, including “Perceptions of Naturalness Predict US Public Support for Soil Carbon Storage as a Climate Solution” in Climatic Change. • He co-published “Americans Aren’t Learning about Anti-Asian Bias. We Have the Data” in the Washington Post, analyzing Americans’ awareness of anti-Asian bias during the pandemic. • He also co-published a pre-election article in the L.A. Times entitled “Will Hidden Trump Supporters Provide Election Day Surprise?”
Did you know? In October, the department will undergo its ten-year external review. A group of four leading communication scholars will conduct a site visit and prepare a report with recommendations and commendations. In preparing our self-study on faculty excellence, teaching excellence, excellence in public engagement, and excellence in research, scholarship, and creativity, we were amazed at what we’ve achieved in the ten years since our last study, including meeting almost all of our goals! Fall 2020/Spring 2021 21
Faculty & Academic Staff News • KATHERINE SENDER served on the Graduate Dean
and Vice Provost for Graduate Education search committee. • She served as interim Director of the Graduate Program Committee and as a member of the Graduate Professional Development Committee. • She is also serving on a departmental search committee for a tenure-track assistant professor. • Katherine co-published “Integrating Qualitative Methods and Open Science: Five Principles for More Trustworthy Research” in a special issue of the Journal of Communication.
• ANDREA STEVENSON WON co-published three papers
in conference proceedings and has two more forthcoming. She published an additional five journal articles. • She received a $10,000 Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Rapid Response Fund grant. • Andrea also received a $3000 Cornell Engaged Opportunity grant for a student-led virtual reality video in partnership with New York State food producers. • She redesigned the course Communication in Virtual Worlds into a hybrid class, which she taught 50% in virtual reality. She will be teaching the course in the same way going forward.
• CONNIE YUAN launched Mindful Intercultural Communication, the last of
a three-course sequence on intercultural communication. • She served as Vice Chair of Cornell’s University Hearing Board. • Connie was named the Most Influential Academic Mentor to a Merrill Presidential Scholar (Xing Gao). • She is newly appointed as Faculty-in-Residence for Clara Dickson Hall.
And now for some of the more humorous responses! • My major accomplishment: I survived. Lauren Chambliss • I delivered several international talks while being in the same room as my cats. Brooke Duffy • Charlie (age six) said I earned the best mom award after giving him ice cream for dinner…. I’m assuming I share the award with many other moms, but that doesn’t take away from my glory. Lee Humphreys • I completed seven years of my five-year term as Chair of the Department of Science and Technology Studies. Bruce Lewenstein 22 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
23 Fall 2019/Spring 2020
The writing is on the wall—we’re headed back to the office!
Department Chair, Poppy L. McLeod, plm29@cornell.edu 450 Mann Library Building Ithaca, NY 14853 607.255.2601 Follow us on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter. Visit us at our website.
