Category: Academic Life

NCA’s Golden Monograph Award

This past fall I was so excited to receive the National Communication Association’s Golden Monograph Award for an article I published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech in 2022 entitled, “Re-envisioning fertility science: From J. Marion Sims’s invasive gynecology to Sophia Kleegman’s ‘conservative surgery’ hermeneutic.” I am so lucky to have a community of people…

Olivia begins the new year doing excellent community-based, health communication research

Lots of fantastic projects are on the agenda for M.A. student, Olivia Webster, this semester, and she’s able to take it all on with a cat on her head! 🙂 More specifically, she is continuing work with faculty member Marcie Young Cancio and Amplify Utah on a journalism-based storytelling project concerning those experiencing homelessness, and…

Dr. Madison Krall wins the OSCLG Dissertation Award

Please check out this article featured in The Setonian about Madison’s recognition as recipient of a 2023 Cheris Kramerae Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender: Dr. Krall Wins Kramerae Dissertation Award – The Setonian Madison received this recognition for her fantastic dissertation, U.S. Medical Controversy and Its…

Women & Language Forum + OSCLG Conference

Last spring, my wonderful graduate student, Gia Almuaili, and I had the opportunity to contribute to a fantastic forum in the journal Women & Language on the overturning of Roe v. Wade and what the new legislative landscape may entail. It was an absolutely wonderful experience led by W&L editor, Siobhan E. Smith-Jones, and you…

New Advisee Olivia Webster’s Successful Program of Study Defense

My newest advisee, Olivia Webster, successfully (more than) passed her Program of Study Defense earlier this week. She is exploring the area of critical disability and race studies, as well as health and science communication and community-based methods. Her committee members were all so excited to see the progress that Olivia has made toward her…

Research Meeting

On September 1st, I met with a group of awesome reproductive health students and researchers to begin a new collaboration on the communication of reproductive health information in the secondary-school sex education classroom. Dr. Madison Krall, Ph.D. student Gabby Garza, advanced undergraduate researchers Jasmine Aguilar Lopez and Miya Jordan, and I talked about coding and…

Grad School Days and 75th Anniversary Talks at UIUC

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit my old grad-school stomping grounds at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This had me going back down memory lane and looking up artifacts from those good days past. For instance, this photo of several lovely grad students in the program willing to come together…

St. Patty’s Day Chemical Rhetoric Group Coding Meeting

A subset of the Chemical Rhetoric Group has been working on a project that has required lots of coding. Fortunately, we are all up for finding ways to make that process fun with a nod to St. Patty’s Day and a killer data management system (as you can see below). We should have used shades…

Finding Science in the Special Collections

This week, members of our Rhetoric of Science graduate seminar had the fantastic opportunity to visit the Marriott Library’s Special Collections. Original Cataloger for Special Collections, Allie McCormack (pictured below in the front of the class), prepared an engaging and illuminating presentation about archival search engines, theory, and analysis, and she let us page through…

Dr. Amanda Boyd’s Research on Health Inequities and Community Participatory Research

The University of Utah has been such a hotspot for amazing speakers lately. We were so lucky to have Dr. Amanda Boyd, member of the Metis Nation of Alberta and Associate Professor in The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, give the B. Aubrey Fisher Memorial Lecture on October 27th. She…

RSQ’s Special Issue on “Global Black Rhetorics” is Published

I’m thrilled to report that Rhetoric Society Quarterly‘s special issue on “Global Black Rhetorics: A New Framework for Engaging African and Afro Diasporic Rhetorical Traditions” is now published. The Special Issue Editors, Ronisha Browdy and Esther Milu, wrote a wonderful introduction to the issue that you can read here–“Global Black Rhetorics: A New Framework for…

Gia Almuaili joins the Chemical Rhetoric Group

I’m so pleased to announce that Gia Almuaili has joined us here this fall as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication and that she has already gotten involved with Chemical Rhetoric Group projects. Gia, who is originally from Kuwait, received both her bachelors and her masters degrees in Strategic Communication from the University…

Graduation 2022

Our department was so excited to graduate an amazing group of Ph.D. (pictured above–photo credit to Avery Holton) and M.A. students this spring. Each and every one of those students has obtained a tenure-track position for the coming fall, and I am so excited to see them off into the next phase of their academic…

National Science Foundation Workshop on Inclusive Language in STEM

Last month, I had the opportunity to travel to San Diego for an NSF-funded workshop on inclusive language in the STEM disciplines. It was a wonderful trip mixing rhetoricians (you can see several of them hard at work if you look closely at the image below–John Lynch at the board, Raquel Robvais looking on from…

Introducing Dr. Madison Krall, in-coming Assistant Professor of Communication at Seton Hall University!

Several weeks ago, Madison entered a Zoom room with her Ph.D. Committee Members and, about two hours later, she left the room having earned a Doctorate of Philosophy (aka, a Ph.D.). She defended her dissertation research beautifully, and her excellent committee members (featured below) offered her amazing feedback and a double dose of CONGRATULATIONS because…

Achival Gems: Zines and more from the Marriott Library Special Collections

Students from my COMM 5950 class on strategic feminist communication and I had the opportunity to check out some of the women-and-gender-oriented archival holdings at the University of Utah’s Special Collections Library earlier this semester. We loved parceling through a sample of the library’s amazing collection of third and fourth wave zines, several of which…

Teaching Classes on Science, Health, and Environmental Communication, and on Feminist Communication in U.S. History

For the Spring 2020 semester, I’m teaching COMM 3115: Communicating Science, Health, and the Environment which focuses on the idea that communication plays a fundamental role in public perceptions of science, health, and the environment. This class provides students with an overview of how these topics tend to be communicated in contexts ranging from the…

Madison is Elected Secretary of ARSTM at NCA 2021

At the National Communication Association Conference in November, Madison Krall was elected to the position of ARSTM Secretary. ARSTM stands for the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and I am very excited that Madison will be taking on a leadership role in this vibrant and growing group of scholars.

Dr. Melissa Parks accepts Faculty Position at Drexel University

Starting in January, Melissa will begin her new position on faculty in the Department of Communication at Drexel University, where she will teach classes and do research focused on non-profit communication. This allows her to draw from her extensive background in environmental, health, and intercultural communication, as well as her experience working with the Peace…

Defenses, Defenses, Kourtney Maison and Ashleigh McDonald Pass Their Defenses!

This fall has been a very successful one in terms of academic defenses for our group (please note that, although I used this image from a boxing correspondence course as a header for this post, I’m happy to report that none of our defenses ever turned to fisticuffs). At the end of October, Kourtney Maison…

Theorizing Chemical Rhetoric in the Journal of Communication

My new article, “Theorizing Chemical Rhetoric: Toward an Articulation of Chemistry as a Public Vocabulary,” has been published in the Journal of Communication! I learned so much in the process of writing this piece and am hoping that it proves useful for others who are interested in how chemistry and its concepts circulate and are…

Archival Gems: Remembering Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi

I found this little gem a few years back at the Schlesinger Library (pardon the poor photography). The library didn’t end up having much on Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi’s communications concerning infertility and reproductive health, which is what I was looking for, but it did have this excerpt from an obituary written about Jacobi on…

Drs. Parks and Cullinan Earn Top Paper Award

Megan and Melissa learned recently that their paper, “Art-as-Pedagogy for Environmental Activism: The Rhetoric of Washed Ashore’s Ocean Plastics Exhibition,” won the Top Paper Award at the 2021 Conference on Communication and Environment (COCE). Woot, woot! Here is the announcement on Twitter. Their research is funded by a 2019 National Geographic Early Career Grant. I…

Exclusive Chemical Rhetoric Group Zoom Party

At the end of April, we had a Chemical Rhetoric Group soiree, via Zoom. As you might imagine, the whole thing was very exclusive and very, very fancy in that it included science-themed party favors and a viewing of a new NOVA “Beyond the Elements” episode wherein we learned about some of the differences between…

Madison Krall named a Steffensen-Cannon Fellow for the 2nd year in a row

This past spring, Madison learned that she was awarded a Ellen Christina Steffensen Cannon Scholarship for the second straight year to complete her dissertation project exploring regulatory rhetoric, thalidomide, and women’s reproductive health and medicine. Find out more about this outstanding recognition, which is bestowed on those pursuing “excellence in their chosen fields of Education…

Dr. Benjamin Mann accepts Assistant Professor position at Eastern Oregon University

Starting this coming fall, Ben will join the faculty at Eastern Oregon University as an Assistant Professor of Communication in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences! Below, see Ben during a recent visit to the area enjoying the beautiful, wooded mountains of La Grande. I can’t wait to hear about the fantastic adventures…

Dr. Melissa Parks’ research highlighted in NCA’s Communication Currents

Melissa’s Text and Performance Quarterly essay, “Ecocultural adjustment: Revisiting acculturation through a Peace Corps sojourn,” has recently been featured in the National Communication Association publication Communication Currents, which translates communication scholarship for lay audiences. Check out the Communication Currents piece here, and find links to Melissa’s original article here, with the complete citation below. Parks,…

Searching for Chemical Landmarks–a visual history and new publication in the journal, Science Communication

The journal Science Communication recently published our article “Strategic Place-Making and Public Scientific Outreach in the American Chemical Society’s National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program.” More than any other piece we’ve written as a group, I think this one had us working together as an interconnected unit the most. It involved traveling to (and finding!) multiple,…

Celebrating the Elements (and Coding) on Zoom

Last week, members of the Chemical Rhetoric Group met via Zoom to do some coding and celebrate the elements. Of course we dressed up. Below you will see (clockwise): -Me as boron: element number 5 (usually gray-ish in color, this metalloid produces bright green flames when set on fire). -Megan Cullinan as mercury: element number…

Madison Krall presents top paper at NCA 2020

Madison Krall’s paper was featured on the Top Student Papers in Theatre, Film, and New Multi-Media panel at the National Communication Conference this year. Entitled “Dirty Dancing’s Stagnating Subplot: Critiquing the Commemorative Control of Film for U.S. Public Memory,” Madison’s research in this project ties into her dissertation work exploring the regulatory history of women’s…

Dr. Mann presents a Top Paper at NCA 2020

Ben’s paper, “Theorizing Intersectional Stigma Management Communication at the Crossroads: LGBTAIQ+ and Autistic Subjectivities,” was featured on the Disability Issues Caucus Top Paper Session at the National Communication Association Conference this year. This research comes out of Ben’s dissertation work and draws from 30 interviews Ben did with individuals who are both LGBTQIA+ and autistic…

(Virtual) Keynote Address for Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science’s 5th Annual Women in Science and Healthcare (WiSH) Symposium

On September 10, 2020, I was honored to give the keynote address for Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science’s 5th Annual Women in Science and Healthcare (WiSH) Symposium. This was especially exciting in this particular year because the symposium was celebrating what would have been crystallographer Rosalind Franklin’s 100th birthday, and Rosalind Franklin’s niece,…

Dr. Benjamin Mann accepts Post-doc position at Dixie State University

This fall, Dr. Benjamin Mann began a new position as a Post-Doctoral Fellow of Communication at Dixie State University in the College of Humanities and Social Change. In this position, Ben serves as a full-time faculty member, instructor of Communication courses, and researcher. Find out more about this position and Ben’s research and teaching, here…

Dr. Melissa Parks accepts Post-doc position at University of CA, Santa Barbara

This fall, Dr. Melissa Parks began her tenure as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Humanities and Social Change Center. There she is working with an interdisciplinary team of scholars to explore issues of social change related to the environment, science, technology, and the broader culture. You can find out more…

Madison Krall Wins 2020-2021 Steffensen Cannon Fellowship

Last spring, Madison learned that she had been awarded a 2020-2021 Steffensen Cannon Fellowship to support her dissertation research on regulatory rhetoric and the mid-twentieth century thalidomide disaster. See our departmental announcement of Madison’s award, here. Find out more about the competitive Steffensen Cannon Fellowship, here. The fellowship was established at the University of Utah…

National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship

At the beginning of the year, I learned that I had been awarded a 2020-2021 National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship. I am so excited to have the support of the NEH as I work on my next book project. For more information about the project and the award, see the College of Humanities…

Dr. Melissa M. Parks

In the spring semester, Melissa defended her dissertation successfully and became a PhD! The University was closed because of the pandemic, so she had to defend her work to her committee over a Zoom meeting. A traditional defense experience it was not, but certainly a memorable one! Well done, Dr. Parks! P.S. I have a…

Dr. Benjamin W. Mann

You can call him Dr. Mann! In mid-December, Benjamin Mann successfully defended his dissertation, “Intersectional Stigma Communication, Demi-rhetoricity, and Critical Health Communication: Affirming (Neuro)queer Subjectivities.” His committee members agreed that he had put together an important project grounded in interviews with hard-to-reach and often overlooked individuals and that his research would go a long way…

Benjamin W. Mann is selected to attend the 2019 Doctoral Honors Seminar!

Last July, Ben traveled to the University of South Florida after being selected to take part in the National Communication Association’s Doctoral Honor’s Seminar. The seminar’s theme was “Communication, Engagement, and Social Justice,” which fit perfectly with Ben’s dissertation project on the negotiation of intersectional stigma. He joined excellent faculty leaders and other outstanding doctoral…

Melissa Parks Heads to the Taft-Nicholson Center for the 2019 Summer Season

For the second year in a row, Melissa Parks has been named a fellow and education coordinator at the University of Utah’s Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Center in Beaverhead County, MT. She will spend the summer helping to keep the center running, giving research talks, and otherwise supporting the many research and educational endeavors the center…

Madison Krall and Robin Jensen take part in RSA’s “Medical Rhetoric in the Archives” Seminar

In the beginning of June, Madison and Robin headed to the University of Maryland to take part in a Rhetoric Society of America Institute Seminar entitled, Medical Rhetoric in the Archives. Robin worked with the amazing Professor Jordynn Jack to lead the seminar of about 30 scholars through a variety of readings, discussions, and activities…

Park City Writing Retreat 2018

Scenes from our 2018 Park City Writing Retreat!  Benjamin Mann, Melissa Parks, Kourtney Maison, Madison Krall, Emily Krebs and I spend these last few days analyzing primary sources, brainstorming, writing, re-writing, and accomplishing a ton of research goals. We also laughed, ate, and tried to figure out how to turn the malfunctioning fire alarm off…

Celebrating Dr. Celeste Condit and Reproductive Justice at the Public Address Conference

  What fun it was to meet up with some of my favorite people in Boulder, Colorado to talk about the amazing work of Dr. Celeste Condit and speak to issues of reproductive justice and health! Below are a few scenes from the event, beginning with the honoree, Dr. Condit, responding brilliantly and humbly (as…

Melissa Parks Serves as a Fellow at the Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center

This past spring, Melissa Parks was named the inaugural field experience graduate fellow at the Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center in Lakeview, MT. She spent the summer in Centennial Valley working with director, Mark Bergstrom, to further the Center’s mission concerning environmental education and communication. Way to go, Melissa!!

Trip to the Science History Institute in Philadelphia

Earlier this year, I won a travel grant to visit the Othmer Library of Chemical History at Philadelphia’s Science History Institute. This allowed me to spend the last week in June combing through the library’s tremendous archives and exploring Old Town Philly. This is me taking up residence in the Othmer Library. The archives are…

The first issue of the new journal, Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, is hot off the press!

Click here to check out the issue’s compelling introduction by journal editors Lisa Meloncon and J. Blake Scott, as well as fantastic articles by Lisa DeTora, Celeste Condit, S. Scott Graham, Mary Lay Schuster, Colleen Derkatch, and more. Below, editor Lisa Meloncon and I coordinate at the 2017 Rhetoric of Health & Medicine Symposium.

I was interviewed for two podcasts that focus on reproductive health and infertility

The first is called Waiting for Babies, and you can listen here! Host Steven Mavros asks great, informed questions, and was such a pleasure to talk with. The second is called Beat Infertility, and you can listen here! Host Heather Huhman has one of the best radio voices I’ve ever heard, and her podcast was…

Robin with an E

I found this article today where the author writes that Robin M. Jensen, a professor of theology at Notre Dame, “must be fairly tired of being confused with Robin E. Jensen, a professor at Utah and author of Dirty Words: The Rhetoric of Public Sex Education. Perhaps they both are.”