Department News

May 2021

The Department of Communication represented by Drs. Archana Krishnan, Annis Golden and Masahiro Yamamoto along with doctoral student Olivia Mata won the Best Poster Award at the 5th Annual Conference of the Center for mHealth and Social Media (CHASM). Check out the award-winning animated video poster on documenting disparities in technology access, information-seeking and vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66gA_kJjN-c

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The Department of Communication is pleased to announce that Pallavi Khurana, a PhD student from Delhi, India, is the recipient of the 2020-2021 Graduate Student Research Award. 

Pallavi’s research focuses on impression management and health issues in the context of social media. Pallavi had four conference papers accepted in 2020-2021. One of these papers was presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association (the most prestigious international conference for communication scholarship). Two of Pallavi’s conference papers received Top Paper Awards (New York State Communication Association Convention, BEA2021). Pallavi also has three manuscripts currently under journal review.

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The Department of Communication is pleased to announce that Natalie Cosentino is the winner of the 2020-2021 Richard W. Wilkie Award for the Outstanding Undergraduate in Communication. Please watch Natalie's recorded commencement address to the Department of Communication’s Senior Class of 2021.

April 2021

Congratulations to graduating Communication senior Chidiogo Igboekwe who has received two major awards: the 2021 Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence and the President’s Distinguished Scholar-Leader Award.

Igboekwe, a Nigerian-American from Queens, is an honors student with a passion for social justice. A Communication major with minors in Criminal Justice and Education, she hopes to make education more accessible for incarcerated people, both during prison sentences and post-release.

August 2020

COM doctoral student, Pallavi Khurana, who along with her co-author, Thora Knight from the Department of Information Science and under the guidance of Professor Teresa Harrison, have won the Top PhD Paper Award at the NYSCA Annual Conference 2020. Title of the Paper: Content Analysis of Athletic Brand Posts on Instagram; Author: Pallavi Khurana, Department of Communication, University at Albany, SUNY;  Co-author: Thora Knight, College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cyber Security, University at Albany, SUNY. 

July 2020

Assistant Professor Archana Krishnan from the Department of Communication was recently awarded the 2020 Emerging Scholar Research Grant by the International Communication Association’s Mobile Communication Interest Group (MCIG). The announcement was made during MCIG’s business meeting at this year’s ICA conference which was converted to a virtual conference due to COVID-19. Dr. Krishnan’s winning proposal aims to examine third-person perception of compulsive mobile phone use and its effect on behavioral outcomes.

May 2020

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Communication Department 2019-2020 Graduate Research Award is Chia-Heng Chang, a second year doctoral student. Chia was nominated for her research productivity which includes three first-author accepted papers at the 2020 Annual Conference of International Communication Association (ICA), 2020 Annual Conference of Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), and 2020 Feminist Studies Consortium. The nominators noted that “Chia is one of our program’s most self-motivated doctoral students and showcases a genuine curiosity and outstanding abilities.” 

February 2020

Congratulations to MA student Oscar Malaco Jr. for receiving a top student paper award from the Health Communication Division of the International Communication Association for his paper, “Do You Hear the People Sing: The Dengvaxia Fiasco in the Philippines as a Social Drama”. This is a competitive division to get papers accepted for presentation.

August 2019

The Department of Communication welcomes Professor Patricia Gettings this Fall 2019. She earned her PhD from the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University (2016) and, most recently, was a member of the faculty at Indiana University Southeast. Her research interests include organizational communication, interpersonal communication and mixed methods. Gettings' research has been published in outlets including Communication Monographs, Communication Research, and Annals of the International Communication Association and has received awards such as Top Paper from NCA’s Communication & Aging Division (2017). Joining the Department is a homecoming for Professor Gettings as she grew up in the Capital Region and is excited to be returning.

May 2019

Karlie Flood of Kingston is the 2019 recipient of the Richard W. Wilkie Award for the Outstanding Undergraduate in Communication. She was selected for her outstanding academic record, an effective delivery of an extemporaneous speech and the ability to demonstrate strong critical thinking during a panel presentation. Ms. Flood will be the student speaker at the Saturday morning multi-department recognition ceremony on commencement weekend 2019.

April 2019

Lindsey St. Clair joins the professional staff as our undergraduate studies advisor for our Communication and Journalism students. Ms. St, Clair received a Bachelor's degree in Human Development from SUNY Plattsburgh and a Master's degree in College Student Services Administration from The College of Saint Rose.

PhD Student Zhuozhi Shao, right, is the recipient of the 2018-2019 Graduate Student Communication Research Award. Ms. Shao was selected for showing a promising research trajectory. She has or soon will have presented at 4 different conferences within a time span of about 1.25 years. Her recent scholarly work includes a full paper presented at the Eastern Communication Association, a paper presented in a poster session at the International Communication Association in 2018 and another full paper presentation upcoming at the ICA 2019 convention, and a poster presentation at the 10th Annual International Conference on Social Media & Society. Ms. Shao is pictured here with Department Chair Annis Golden at an April Proseminar meeting.

August 2018

The Department welcomes two new faculty members for Fall 2018. Associate Professor Rukhsana Ahmed will be teaching Communication classes. She comes from the University at Ottawa. Assistant Professor Chang Sup Park joins our Journalism Program. He was most recently at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

May 2019

The featured speaker at the 2018 Department Recognition Ceremony was Communication alum Doug Mortman ’01, vice president of Sports and Talk Operations at SiriusXM Radio. Doug has covered every major sporting event in the U.S. including World Series, NBA finals, golf and tennis majors, NCAA Final Fours and 14 straight Super Bowls. He also works with name brands to create live broadcast events integrated with fan activation. More recently Doug has worked on news and entertainment events including town halls with Tyler Perry, Jenny McCarthy, Andy Cohen, Dan Rather, and Cardinal Dolan to name a few. He's also the co-creator and former host of SiriusXM's hit show Busted Open.

Samantha Cordona of Staten Island was selected as winner of the 2018 Richard W. Wilkie Award for the Outstanding Undergraduate in Communication. The award is named after Dr. Wilkie, an emeritus member of the Communication faculty who urged his students to attain excellence, especially in argumentation and public discourse.

Photos of the 2018 Department Recognition Ceremony can be found on the Department's Facebook page.

April 2018

Professor Piotr Szpunar has authored "Homegrown," a book on terrorism in America published by NYU Press. Szpunar examines the ways in which identities are blurred in the war on terror, amid debates concerning who is “the real terrorist.” He specializes in concepts of identity, conflict and media, and critical communication theory.

Professor Emerita Anita Pomerantz is widely acknowledged to be one of the pivotal figures in the development of the research field of conversation analysis, having written many of what are regarded as “true classics” in contemporary CA research.

Recently, the International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA) has chosen to present Profesor Pomerantz with their Lifetime Achievement Award. She will accept the award at the annual conference of the ISCA in July 2018 in Loughborough, England.

This is her second lifetime achievement award in one year, the prior one having been awarded by the Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analytic Section of the American Sociological Association in 2017.

August 2017

The Department of Communication would like to welcome Assistant Professor Fan Yang, who earned her PhD at Pennsylvania State University. Professor Yang's research interests center on new media and strategic communication. She studies the psychological effects of new communicative technologies using survey, experiment, and other quantitative methods, with a special focus on strategic use of new media to enhance information processing and decision-making. She also examines the effects of emerging media using advanced data analytic techniques such as meta-analysis and social network analysis to harness the power of large data sets. Her teaching interests include persuasion, new media in strategic communication, and big data analytics. The Fall she is teaching Public Relations Research Methods.

May 2017

Scott Felenstein '90, Chief Revenue Officer at National Cinemedia, was the featured speaker at the 2017 Department of Communication Recognition Ceremony for Communication and Journalism students on May 20. Photos galleries are available on our Facebook page. You can also check out the video of of the full ceremony.

Several longtime members of the Department of Communication are retiring this month after many years at the University at Albany, SUNY. They've worked with thousands of students over the years. We will miss them and wish them well on their next adventure. Best wishes to:
* Professor Teresa Harrison, former Department Chair, who is stepping down from full-time teaching but she'll be on campus as an O'Leary Professor.
* Associate Professor Rosemary Armao, Journalism Program Director, who is returning to work in Journalism overseas (http://blog.timesunion.com/…/see-you-soon-professor-…/10741/)
* Lecturer BJ Fehr (COM 265x instructor), who we expect to be tending to her garden
* Secretary Debbie Bourassa, who after 33 years at UAlbany, plans to spend time with her grandson and husband who is also retiring this month.
Thank you for your service and dedication to the students at UAlbany!

The winner of the 2017 Richard W. Wilkie Award is Gabrel Reid, born and raised in the Bronx, a first generation American. Raised in a West Indian household, Gabrel and her siblings were taught the value of education, dedication, and hard work. Attending public school all her life, Gabrel attended the Collegiate Institute for Math and Science where she became inspired to become a professional school counselor. Gabrel has had many academic successes at UAlbany. She is a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and the Nu Alpha chapter of Lambda Pi Eta. For the past 4 years, Gabrel has received the Dr. Seth W. Spellman Academic Achievement Award, and has been on the Dean’s list of Distinguished Students. This fall, Gabrel will be continuing her education attending Mercy College for an M.S. in counseling.  The Richard W. Wilkie Award for the Outstanding Undergraduate in Communication is given each year. The award is named after Dr. Wilkie, an emeritus member of the Communication faculty who urged his students to attain excellence, especially in argumentation and public discourse.
Gabrel spoke to her classmates at the department recognition ceremony on May 20. You can find her speech at the (~23:30) mark of this video.

April 2017

Lorenza Mondada, Chair in General Linguistics and French Linguistics at the University of Basel, will present a talk on "Language, Body and Mobility in Social Interaction: Talking and Walking Together." Using video recordings, she will discuss the complexities of analyzing social interaction that takes place in a mobile environment. Monday, April 24, 2017, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. HU290. Free

March 2017

Dr. Archana Krishnan of the Department of Communication and Dr. Frederick Altice of Yale University have been awarded a two-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) R21 grant (R21DA039842) to study the impact of mHealth tools on medication adherence behaviors among HIV-infected cocaine users. Project SMART will implement cellular-enabled electronic pill boxes and smartphones to track real-time medication intake and use automated versus clinician feedback to improve adherence and consequently HIV health outcomes.

February 2017

Scott Felenstein '90, Chief Revenue Officer at National Cinemedia, will be the featured speaker at the Department of Communication Recognition Ceremony for Communication and Journalism students at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 20, in the PE Gym. We do not anticipate tickets will be necessary for guests, though students are limited to 10 guests and should sign up on the UAlbany Commencement page. A photo gallery from the 2016 ceremony in SEFCU Arena is available on our Facebook page.

December 2016

Dr. Matthew Matsaganis recently presented the official report on New York City’s Ethnic Media in the Digital Age, a study funded through a grant from the Center for Community and Ethnic Media and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. Three COM graduate students, two PhD students (Xin Zhou and Cici Cui-Laughton) and MA student (Zhong Zheng), assisted in the research project. To download the report and view the slides, click here. Matsaganis, principal investigator of the study, shared key findings based on a survey of more than 100 ethnic media outlets and numerous follow-up interviews with ethnic media producers. The report offers a detailed look at how the ethnic media sector in NYC is adopting technological innovations, what challenges these media face in incorporating new communication technologies into their everyday professional practices, and ideas about how to address these challenges successfully.

November 2016

Department of Communication welcomes a new Undergraduate Studies Advisor, Kate Sechler. Ms. Sechler will be advising all COM and JRL majors and minors. Her office is located inside the Communication Department suite in Social Science 351. Undergraduate students can reach Ms. Sechler at [email protected] or call 518-442-4875 for an appointment. Ms. Sechler replaces Daniel Capogna who left UAlbany earlier this year. We’re looking into using a new system of signing up online for advisement appointments; more information about that will follow soon. All undergraduate majors will continue to have a faculty mentor whose name is listed on your DARS report.

September 2016

Dr. Archana Krishnan of the Department of Communication and Dr. Frederick Altice of Yale University have been awarded a two-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) R21 grant (R21DA039842) to study the impact of mHealth tools on medication adherence behaviors among HIV-infected cocaine users. Project SMART will implement cellular-enabled electronic pill boxes and smartphones to track real-time medication intake and use automated versus clinician feedback to improve adherence and consequently HIV health outcomes.

August 2016 

Two new full-time faculty have joined the department this fall. Piotr Szpunar, PhD University of Pennsylvania, 2014, is teaching a new course "Communicating Terror: Political Violence & Media." Masahiro Yamamoto, PhD Washington State University, 2012, is teaching a new course "Digital and Social Media in Strategic Communication." 

May 2016

Congratulations to the Communication and Journalism students who graduated in Spring 2016. Our featured speaker was Communication alum Chris Brennan '88, senior vice president of Global Retail Development for the NBA. He was also the guest speaker at a September 2016 event on campus where he spoke about his career, what he currently does and how UAlbany helped get him there, as well as the NBA's internship program. Commencement photos can be seen on our Facebook page.

April 2016

Assistant Professor Archana Krishnan was named an mHealth Scholar for the 2016 UCLA mHealth Training Institute (mHTI) to be held at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from August 8-12, 2016. This week-long immersion program provides 30 selected participants with a core educational grounding in mHealth perspectives and methodologies and helps foster the intrapersonal and interpersonal skills and attitudes necessary for transdisciplinary collaborations.

Assistant Professor Alyssa Morey has been selected for the Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Leave Program for the Fall 2016 semester. This competitive award enhances employment opportunities for people who are preparing for permanent or continuing appointments with preference given to minorities, women, employees with disabilities, or an employee with military status.  

The Department of Communication launched a new professional development series this semester called "Communication, Careers, and Cookies". Undergraduate students studying Communication and/or Journalism are invited to the event which is intended to be an intimate conversation with a UAlbany Department of Communication alum or another professional with a Communication background who is working in a communication-based field. Our inaugural speaker was alum Mary Christiano '91 '93 (communication director with PIA Management Services and current PhD student) on landing that first job and beyond in public relations. Our speakers on the field of marketing were Brittany Gilman (Zone 5 social media strategist) and Victoria Barbeisch (former Zone 5 account executive and current lecturer and PhD student at UAlbany).

February 2016

The Department of Communication Recognition Ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 14, at 12:30 p.m. at SEFCU Arena. Fall 2015 and Summer 2016 COM graduates who wish to participate should contact the COM office at 518-442-4871. A photo gallery from the 2015 ceremony can be found on our Facebook page.

January 2016

Assistant Professor Nicolas Bencherki and MA student James P. Snack recently published a paper in Management Communication Quarterly where they criticize the way organizational communication researchers tend to emphasize the interpretations “members” make of their organization. However, they show that there are many organizations – and this is particularly true of community-based organizations (CBOs) – where membership is not always clear. For example, volunteers may work for several organizations at once, and CBOs often work in partnerships, making the boundaries of membership unclear. The two researchers therefore suggest a research strategy that allows observing the way people themselves make sense of who’s a member and who’s not, rather than assuming that formal membership represents the actual intricacies of everyday work at CBOs.

December 2015

COM Department Chair Annis Golden, Project Director and Associate Professor, and Matthew Matsaganis, COM Associate Professor were on the team that helped the Women's Health Project in Hudson, NY, obtain a $50,000 Dyson Foundation grant which will provide funding for peer counselors, training and programming critical to the functions of WHP.

October 2015

Check out a talk by Steve Greenstein '94 who returned to campus on Oct. 8 to speak to students about careers in TV.  The video stops at about 56 minutes.

September 2015

COM alum Steve Greenstein '94, founder of Squad 47 Films, will speak about his experience getting into the TV business and what kinds of careers exist after graduation. The talk is Thursday, Oct. 8, 4:15-5:45 p.m. in Humanities 354. Reception to follow. Thank you to the UAlbany Alumni Association for their support. 

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For Fall 2015, 162 students, including 29 transferring here from other colleges, were admitted to the Department of Communication. For more information about how to become a COM major, visit our website: https://www.albany.edu/communication

August 2015

The Department of Communication welcomes new faculty members Lauren Bryant and Archana Krishnan, as well as undergraduate studies advisor Dan Capogna.

June 2015

In June 2015, the College of Arts and Sciences announced an administrative change that moves Journalism to the Department of Communication: "Currently housed in the Department of English, effective Fall 2015 the Journalism program will move to the Department of Communication. All faculty will retain their current departmental affiliation (two have their home in Communication, one in English). The Journalism program is more in alignment with the Department of Communication and this change will facilitate further collaboration between faculty in both areas."

May 2015

The 2015 Department of Communication Recognition Ceremony was held on May 16 at SEFCU Arena with 213 undergraduates earning Bachelor's Degrees and 9 earning Master's Degrees between Fall 2014 and Spring 2015.

Thank you to Communication alum NYC Council Member Ben Kallos '02 for returning to campus to be our guest speaker.

Cecilia Guo was given Richard W. Wilkie Award for the Outstanding Undergraduate in Communication. The award is named after Dr. Wilkie, an emeritus member of the Communication faculty who urged his students to attain excellence, especially in argumentation and public discourse. Ms. Guo, the first in her family to graduate from college, plans to work for a socially-responsible company or non-profit.

For photos and a video from this year's ceremony, check out the photo album on our Facebook page.

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Congratulations to Crystal Brandow of Catskill who was named as the 2015 Graduate Student Research Award winner.

Ms. Brandow has worked with the Department of Communication as both an adjunct professor and a research assistant.

Her research interests include broader, interdisciplinary topics related to mass media representations, health disparities, and public health communication.

January 2015

Congratulations to 113 UAlbany students and 18 transfer students to date who have been admitted to the Communication major for Spring 2015. Welcome! Students interested in majoring in Communication can check out our online information for admission requirements. Students considering minoring in Communication can fill out a form provided by the Registrar.