Shahab Zargari is an award-winning filmmaker with a passion for art, photography, music, and creative advertising. He is currently working as the communications coordinator for the UNLV College of Fine Arts & Performing Arts Center, where he manages social media and produces video and general communications  for the departments of art, dance, film, theatre, the School of Architecture, the School of Music, and the Performing Arts Center.

After years of creating original YouTube and Vimeo content, Shahab jumped into serious filmmaking; producing notable works such as The Crystal Crypt (2013), Out of Time, Susannah's Lesson, and his most recent film, MY NAME IS ART, which is now making its way through the film festival circuit.

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.

Aaron Mayes is a photographer who documents Southern Nevada, its built and natural environments, and the people who call it home.

He began his career as a photojournalist for the Henderson Home News and Las Vegas Sun, before working as UNLV’s university photographer documenting life on campus. In his role as curator for visual materials at UNLV Libraries, Mayes is responsible for growing Special Collections’ archive by creating and collecting photographs, as well as providing technical expertise with digitization efforts.

A fifth-generation Nevadan, Mayes’ work has been seen in many national and international publications and in local media outlets.

Patricia Cook-Craig is an associate professor at the UNLV School of Public Policy and Leadership in the College of Urban Affairs. Her recent research has focused on the evaluation of violence prevention programming and the role that learning and professional social networks play in shaping individual and organizational outcomes.

Cook-Craig has served as the empowerment evaluator for the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs since 2005 providing consultation, evaluation, and training for their violence prevention programming and the evaluator for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for the Sexual Violence Prevention Program since 2015. In addition, she has provided consultation related to violence prevention to a number of organizations and coalitions related to interpersonal and sexual violence as well as shelter-based services.

Among her recent work, she has served as the co-principal investigator on a five-year CDC-funded randomized control trial study to test the effectiveness a bystander prevention program in reducing dating and sexual violence in a statewide implementation in 26 high schools. Over the past 15 years, Cook-Craig has also examined how professional social networks and organizational learning can be used to facilitate learning among social workers, organizations, and communities of practice both in the United States and working with a binational team in Israel.

Lee Bernick is a professor with expertise in state and local public policy, survey research, public budgeting, and legislative behavior.  He has been published in a variety of professional journals including Public Administration Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Journal of Politics, and State and Local Government Review.  

Prior to coming to UNLV Bernick taught at Iowa State University and University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG).  At UNCG he was director of a center of social science research. He was an elected school board member in Greensboro, N.C. At UNLV he has served as chair of an academic department and dean of the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. 

He and his students in the Ph.D. in public affairs program annually conduct a State of the State Survey: Nevada to tap the opinions of Nevadans on a wide ranging issues facing Nevada.  His current research projects include an analysis of national-state relations with regard to educational policy, county governments, and survey methodology.     

Benjamin Burroughs is an assistant professor of emerging media. He researches streaming media and technology, media industries, digital media, sports media, social media, and digital journalism. His work has been published in journals such as New Media and Society, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, International Journal of Sport Communication, and Games and Culture. 

Stephen Bates is a professor in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at UNLV. He teaches classes on free speech, censorship, privacy, and media politics.

His research focuses on the First Amendment. He is the author of An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee That Redefined Freedom of the Press (Yale University Press), as well as books on the history of journalism, political advertising, and religious freedom. His articles have appeared in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Communication Law and Policy, American Journalism, Journalism History, and the International Journal of Communication, as well as the Washington Post Magazine, American Heritage, the Wall Street Journal, and the Wilson Quarterly, where he spent nine years as literary editor. He holds an A.B. and a J.D. from Harvard University.

A former board member of the ACLU of Nevada, Bates is a member of the advisory board of the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV. He has been a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies, and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy [photo by Martha Stewart Photography].

Lynn Comella is a professor of gender and sexuality studies in the department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies. An expert on the adult entertainment industry, her research explores a number of broad sociological themes, including the relationship between gender, sexual politics, and consumer culture.

Her work on the history of the women’s market for sex toys and pornography has been published in the International Journal of Communication, Porn Studies, Feminist Media Studies, The Feminist Porn Book, Sex for Sale, and New Sociologies of Sex Work, among other venues. She has also published more than 50 articles about sex and culture in local and national media outlets, including Bitch magazine and Pacific Standard.

She is the author of Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure (Duke University Press, 2017) and co-editor of New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law (Praeger, 2015). Comella was the recipient of the 2015 Nevada Regents’ Rising Researcher Award in recognition of early-career accomplishments and is a frequent media commentator.