Associate professor Katie Houk is the undergraduate medical education librarian in the UNLV School of Medicine Library at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, where she supports the education, research, and wellness of Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine students, faculty, and staff. Along with supporting the medical school's research and evidence-based medicine curriculum, Houk has a particular interest in improving health communication to the public through training on spoken and written communication best practices, evaluation of health information materials, and the promotion of trusted health information resources, particularly those created for historically excluded groups.

Houk is interested in medical humanism, an interdisciplinary field that incorporates practices from the humanities into medical training to promote a more holistic understanding and approach to health. She is looking to expand on previous collaborations with faculty and students in the medical school and other departments in the UNLV Health Sciences Division to promote and undertake research on literature, art, and creative expression as avenues for learning, reflection, growth and wellness. She combines her interests in health literacy and medical humanism through expertise in graphic medicine.

She has earned a Level II status in the consumer health information specialization from the Medical Library Association, demonstrating her commitment to staying current with developments in resources, technologies, and services. Houk also serves on The Network of the National Library of Medicine’s Community Engagement Council, where she collaborates on initiatives that empower public libraries and community-based organizations to support or advance health equity through access to actionable health information.

Jenny Farrell is an expert in interpersonal communication, with a focus on relational communication.

Her research specifically zeroes in on the challenges of communicating in long-distance relationships. Farrell's classes are research- and application-based, encouraging students to deeply self-reflect and apply concepts to improve their own communication skills and their close relationships. Students explore navigating the dynamics of topics including attraction, secrets, love, lust, sex, cheating, conflict, deception, jealousy, forgiveness, break-ups, make-ups, and online relationships.

UNLV School of Public Health professor Erika Marquez is an expert on health disparities, children's health, improving diversity in health communication, and finding ways to creatively dispense health information to underserved populations. She also serves as co-director of Health Equity Research and Training for the Nevada Minority Health & Equity Coalition — a partnership of academic, civic, private and community organizations that aim to address health disparities and inequities in Nevada by building capacity, informing policy, and conducting research — which is housed within the School of Public Health.

Marquez has devoted the last decade of her career to working on local issues focused on housing quality, housing-related health concerns, and housing equity. Her research uses data and research to inform programs, policies, and practices, as well as to advance the field of public health.

Specifically, she has examined the impact of lead in children, as well as used surveillance data to inform public health decisions and engage community partners to improve housing conditions and increase blood lead testing in young children. More recently, Marquez has led #OneCommunity, a COVID-19 prevention and vaccine awareness outreach campaign that aims to educate and reach at-risk populations (including the Hispanic, Latinx, Asian American Pacific Islander, LGBTQ, African American, Deaf and Blind, and Native American communities) via the development of culturally responsive content and media, translated materials, billboards, digital advertising, and more.

Prior to her current roles, Marquez was a research associate at UNLV's Nevada Institute for Children's Research and Policy.

Gregory Borchard is professor of mass communication and journalism with UNLV's Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. Borchard focuses in journalism history, reporting, and research methods.

Borchard's publications include the books A Narrative History of the American Press (Routledge, 2018), Lincoln Mediated: The President and the Press through Nineteenth-Century Media (Transaction, 2015), Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley (Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), and Journalism in the Civil War Era (Peter Lang, 2010). His manuscripts appear in Journalism and Communication Monographs, American Journalism, Journalism History, and The Journal of Popular Culture. A former newspaper reporter, he has written for the Minnesota Daily.

In 2018, Borchard was named the editor for the Journalism History, the official academic journal of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s History Division. 

Kenneth Miller is an assistant professor of political science with expertise in elections, polling, campaign finance, and political communication. His teaching and research at UNLV focuses on how money affects American political campaigns and what happens in Congress.

Miller's past work has investigated how the sources of funds affect the content of campaign messages, the behavior of legislators, and the balance of power within party networks. He has also conducted research on the downstream effects of political communication — studying how images used in campaign advertisements affect perception of candidates' positions, and how the presentation of news affects how individuals choose which stories to read.

Prior to UNLV, Miller worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University, and as a visiting assistant professor of political science at the State University of New York at Geneseo. Before his academic career, he worked in political polling and consumer market research. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal of Politics, Politics and Religion, Social Science Quarterly, and The Forum.

Rebecca Rice is an expert in organizational communication. She studies collaboration, workplace communication, resilience, power, and gender. Recent projects focus on how organizations work together to respond to emergencies, including natural disasters (wildland fires) and security threats. 

Her research also includes inter-organizational collaboration, high-reliability organizing, and security.

Alan Feldman is one of the world’s leading experts on responsible gaming.

As Distinguished Fellow in Responsible Gaming for UNLV’s International Gaming Institute, Feldman develops programs and policies to advance related knowledge and capabilities within the industry and regulatory community.

Feldman spent nearly 30 years in the gaming industry with MGM Resorts, where he recently spearheaded the launch of GameSense, an innovative, player-focused responsible gambling program that encourages players to adopt behaviors and attitudes that can reduce the risk of developing gambling disorders. This landmark program is now available at all of MGM’s U.S. properties.

A frequent speaker on responsible gaming at conferences, universities and media events around the world, Feldman serves as Chair of both the National Center for Responsible Gaming as well as the Nevada Advisory Committee on Problem Gambling. He also serves as a member of the Gambling Research Advisory Committee for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

In 2002, the Casino Management Association honored Feldman as the Gaming Professional of the Year and in 2009, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Gaming Communications from the American Gaming Association.