Julian Kilker (Journalism and Media Studies) was an invited presenter at the Desert Studies Institute’s Nov. 5 Curiosity Lab event “The Possible Unknown: Stories about Exploring the Unreachable.” In his Outdoor Night Lab presentation, he showed how the Nevada desert is an ideal environment for research and creative practice with demonstrations of…

Alexandra Nur (Criminal Justice) recently published an article that explores the potential for prison misconduct processing to instigate further misconduct rather than deter future misconduct. In the article entitled "The (Non)Deterrent Potential of Prison Sanction Structure: A Review of Deterrence and Rational Choice in the Prison Context,"…

On Oct. 27, Julian Kilker (Journalism and Media Studies) was awarded a Black Mountain Institute Faculty Research Award funding his research on "Creative Labor in the Age of AI." He plans to interview and document participants in the Las Vegas creative economy, building on his previous projects exploring emerging technologies, labor, and creative…

Professor Gregory Borchard (Journalism and Media Studies) was re-elected by acclamation for a second term as President of the Society of Nineteenth Century Historians during the 33rd Annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press at Augusta University on Nov. 14, 2025.

Yvonne Houy (Fine Arts) and Julian Kilker (Journalism and Media Studies) gave a presentation at the Elsevier Impact Conference in Cascais, Portugal, on Nov. 6, 2025. The presentation, “Zero Budget by Design: Lessons learned engaging a global community without a budget," was based on their experiences editing the open-access journal Tradition-…

Alexa Bejinariu (Criminal Justice) and colleague Shawn Flanigan (School of Public Affairs, San Diego State University) published the research article "Human trafficking risks in countries unaccustomed to migration: Romanian assistance providers’ experiences with conflict-affected migrants from Ukraine" in the European Journal of Criminology. The…

Aya Shata (Journalism and Media Studies) was a speaker and moderator for a panel titled "AI in Advertising: How It’s Changing the Creative Workflow," organized by the American Advertising Federation. It was a thought-provoking discussion on how AI is transforming ideation, design, copywriting, production, and execution in the creative industries,…

Alexandra Nur (Criminal Justice) and Ian Silver (RTI International) recently published an article in Academic Pediatrics examining adult general health, anxiety, and depression among individuals exposed to arrest, conviction, and confinement in juvenile and adult facilities during adolescence. Results re-affirm much work that suggests…

Arthur D. Soto-Vásquez (Journalism and Media Studies) was elected vice-chair of the Popular Media and Culture Division in the International Communication Association. He will serve as vice-chair beginning in 2026 through 2028. He will then serve as chair of the division from 2028 to 2030. 

Arthur D. Soto-Vásquez (Journalism and Media Studies) recently published "Border and Immigration as Etiological Myth in U.S. Right-Wing Politics" in Communication Studies. In the article, the author examines how causal arguments related to borders and immigration are deployed to diagnose a wide range of social ills, including housing…

Alexa Bejinariu (Criminal Justice) published an article titled, “NGO–Government Relations in States With Weak Institutions: Avoiding the State While Supplementing Resource Gaps” in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. Drawing on interviews with Romanian NGOs supporting migrants in the early months following the Russian invasion of Ukraine,…

Amber Krushas (Soluri) (Criminal Justice) published a book titled, "A Review of Personal Recurrent Victimization: Examining the Literature on Recurrent, Repeat, Multiple, Poly, and Revictimization" under SpringerBriefs in Criminology. The book outlines over 550 studies that assess five different forms of recurrent victimization over the last four…