Where you work: Muhlenberg College, Department of Media & Communication

Where you got your Ph.D.: Temple University

Current favorite class: Media & Society: Social Media. Introducing students–often freshman–to critical perspectives on social media, something that so many of them are immersed in, has been endlessly rewarding. I aim to give students the space and time to think and write about the media that shape their social lives and the political and cultural contexts they inhabit, so every semester feels different and exciting as the platforms that dominate our conversations change even if the concerns they evoke persist.

Current research project: I’ve begun digging through the Industry Documents Library maintained by UCSF, exploring how industries–in particular tobacco and fossil fuel–have exerted influence on sites and actors producing metajournalistic discourses, like trade publications, professional/press associations, and J-schools. I’m hoping to find ways to explore how Big Tech has done the same more recently. 

Fun fact about yourself: My favorite summertime lawn game is slate-board quoits, an adaptation of an English pub game that my mother’s family has played for generations and is only common, as far as I can tell, in Pennsylvania’s Slate Belt region.