Department of Communication Faculty & Grad Students Earn Awards, Honors

The amazing faculty and graduate students of the Department of Communication have been honored again and again this year for their outstanding achievements. Here's a look at what they've been doing:

Awards

Professor Robin Jensen was nominated for and received the 2015 Professor Recognition Award from the U's Mortar Board Senior Honors Society and the Order of Omega Greek Honors Society. She was honored at a banquet Dec. 1 as an acknowledgement of her excellence in teaching and her exceptional service as a professor. 

2015 National Communication Association (NCA)

Congratulations to our incredibly faculty and graduate students for winning multiple top honors at the annual NCA convention held Nov. 19-21, 2015, in Las Vegas, Nevada!

Professor and Chair Kent A. Ono was awarded:

• Distinguished Scholar Award for the Critical and Cultural Studies Division
• Teachers on Teaching “Teaching Award”
• Distinguished Scholar Award for the Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division 

Professor Danielle Endres won the Christine L. Oravec Award from the Environmental Communication division for her book chapter: William J. Kinsella, Dorothy Andreas, & Danielle Endres, “Communicating Nuclear Power: A Programmatic Review,” Communication Yearbook 39, ed. Elisa Cohen (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), 277-310.

Professor Robin Jensen was awarded:

• Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award for her doctoral work in rhetoric and public address
• New Investigator Award for the Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division  
• Distinguished Book Award for the Health Communication Division
• Top Paper Award in the Association for the Study of Rhetoric, Science, and Technology Division

Megan McFarlane was awarded:

• Outstanding Dissertation Award for the Critical and Cultural Studies Division 
• Top Student Paper for the Organizational Communication Division 
• Top Paper Panel for the Organizational Communication Division 
• Top Paper Overall for the Organizational Communication Division 

Ana Gomez Parga was awarded Top Student Paper for the Latino/a Studies Division and La Raza Caucus for her paper titled, "Que no te eduque la Rosa de Guadalupe: Preserving Sexism through Telenovelas" 

Ian Summers was awarded Top Student Paper in the Visual Communication Division for his paper titled, "Some folks are born made to wave the flag: Dissensus and subjectification in protest banners"

Additional Awards 

• Comm Professor Jakob Jensen Wins 2015 NIH New Innovator Grant. Dr. Jensen was awarded a highly coveted 2015 New Innovator Grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research program in skin cancer control, which provides him with a $2.2 million grant to pursue a 5-year research program.

• Professor Kim Mangun Wins Distinguished Teaching Award from the American Historical Association. For her outstanding postsecondary history teaching, Dr. Mangun has been announced as winner of the 2015 Eugene Asher Award for Distinguished Teaching.

• Dr. Jakob Jensen received the National Communication Association (NCA) Golden Anniversary Monograph Award for his article, “Comparing tailored and narrative worksite interventions at increasing colonoscopy adherence in adults 50–75: A randomized controlled trial,” which was published in Social Science & Medicine in 2014.

• Dr. Robin Jensen has been awarded the NCA Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award. The award is “given to foster and promote philosophical, historical, or critical scholarship in rhetoric and public discourse.”

• Dr. Robin Jensen also received the National Communication Association (NCA) Health Communication Division’s Distinguished Book Award for her book, Dirty Words: The Rhetoric of Public Sex Education, 1870-1924 (2010, University of Illinois Press).
• Dr. Robin Jensen also received the New Investigator Award by the Rhetoric and Communication Theory (RCT) Division of the National Communication Association.
• Dr. Robert W. Gehl received the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) 2015 Nancy Baym Book Award for his book, Reverse Engineering Social Media: Software, Culture and Political Economy in New Media Capitalism (Temple University Press, 2014).
• Two graduate students from the Department of Communication, Julie Snyder-Yuly and Mariam Betlemidze, were chosen to attend the 2015 National Communication Association Doctoral Honors Seminar (DHS) in July that was hosted by the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. This seminar, which “brings together promising doctoral students and distinguished faculty members from across the discipline and around the nation to discuss current topics in communication” is highly competitive, and accepts 30 students based on papers they submitted as well as letters from the students’ advisors.
• Communication Chair Kent Ono was selected as an honoree at the 2015 National Communication Association for his pedagogy and teaching style. At the national conference in Las Vegas in November, he will be honored with the NCA Teachers on Teaching "Teaching Award."
• Dr. Ono was also selected to receive the 2015 Distinguished Scholar Award given by the Rhetoric and Communication Theory (RCT) Division of the National Communication Association (NCA).
• Assistant Professor Avery Holton won Top Faculty Paper at the 2015 International Communication Association Conference in Puerto Rico with his paper titled "Identity Lost? The personal impact of brand journalism."
• Department of Communication Associate Instructor and recent U of U graduate Megan McFarlane has won the Cheris Kramarae Outstanding Dissertation Award for the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG). McFarlane’s dissertation, titled “U.S. Military Policy and the Discursive Construction of Servicewomen’s Bodies,” examines servicewomen’s bodily experiences.

Congratulations to all!