Accomplishments: Department of Communication Studies

Szu-Ping Lee, Ya-Ting Hsu (both Physical Therapy), and Lung-Chang Chien (Environmental and Occupational Health), along with two alums, Marissa Toberman, '12 BS Kinesiology and '15 Doctor of Physical Therapy, and Betina Bair, '03 BA Communication Studies and '15 Doctor of Physical Therapy, co-authored “Gender and Posture are Significant Risk…
Erika Engstrom (Communication Studies) presented "Ironic Faith: Shades of Religious Renewal in AMC's The Walking Dead" at the annual conference of the Eastern Communication Association in Pittsburgh in April.  
Emma Frances Bloomfield (Communication) is a contributor to the new edited volume, Virtual Dark Tourism: Ghost Roads. Her chapter, titled "Thanaviewing, the Aokigahara Forest, and Orientalism: Rhetorical Separations between the Self and Other in The Forest" analyzes how using Japan's Aokigahara Forest as a backdrop for the…
Jacob Thompson (Communication Studies) was awarded The George Ziegelmueller Coaching Excellence Award by the Board of Trustees of the National Debate Tournament at this year's national championship tournament for policy debate. He is the director of UNLV's top-five nationally ranked debate team, the Sanford I. Berman Debate Forum. The award…
Claudia Chiang-Lopez (Communication Studies) participated in a panel discussion this month following a screening of the Great Basin Water Network's and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada's "Great Basin Water Grab" documentary films at the Clark County Wetlands. The films focus on the disastrous effects a proposed $15.5 billion…
Randy Dexter (Communication Studies) and Jefferson Detrick (Public Administration) were among those who graduated from the Student Veterans of America's 2017 Leadership Institute. Expected to be the leaders of tomorrow, the 93 graduates completed intensive leadership training over three days with access to distinguished leaders including former…
The UNLV Debate Team (Communication Studies) of Matthew Gomez (Political Science) and Jeffrey Horn (Economics) won the Las Vegas Classic Debate Tournament, held at UNLV in October.  Gomez and Horn finished the preliminary debates with a perfect 7-0 record, defeating teams from Gonzaga, Arizona State University,…
Donovan Conley (Communication Studies) and Benjamin Burroughs (Journalism and Media Studies) presented a paper, "Welcome to the Techno-Jungle: Black Mirror and the Traumas of Pre-Political Inoculation" at the Affect, Activism, and New Media Conference at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in October. 
Donovan Conley (Communication Studies) has published a new co-edited collection, along with Stephen J. Hartnett and Lisa Keranen,  Imagining China: Rhetorics of Nationalism in an Age of Globalization (Michigan State University Press). The essays in this collection offer critical readings of the "China imaginary" as it is rhetorically co-…
Emma Frances Bloomfield (Communication Studies) authored an essay about the life-sized replica of Noah's Ark in Kentucky that is part of the Answers in Genesis, a creationist nonprofit. The article, "Ark Encounter as Material Apocalyptic Rhetoric: Contemporary Creationist Strategies On Board Noah's Ark,"  has been published in the Southern…
Erika Engstrom (Communication Studies) presented "Positive Disruption: Gender, Popular Communication, and the Growth Mindset" at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication held in Chicago in August. Her presentation addressed the use of disruption in teaching feminist concepts and making students aware…
Donovan Conley (Communication Studies), Janet Dufek (Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences), and Jennifer Rennels (Psychology) have been named Graduate Faculty Fellows for the 2017-18 academic year. The Graduate Faculty Fellows Program allows UNLV faculty and the Graduate College to work together on projects each academic year. The program…