PhD - Year 5 and Beyond

Hao Cao

My name is Hao Cao, a PhD (’12) student in Media Studies. I come from China. My study interests revolve around civil society, public sphere, alternative media, and social change. Methodologically, I mainly use textual analysis and ethnography. I anticipate completing my PhD study in 2016 or 2017.

Tupur Chattopadhyay

Tupur Chatterjee works on Indian cinema. Her research interests include contemporary changes the cultures of production and film exhibition, gender in popular Bombay cinema, modes of reception and gendered urban experiences with technology and new media. Before joining RTF, she completed her Master's in Film and Media Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and worked for local adaptation of Sesame Street in India.

Link to published work:

http://synoptique.hybrid.concordia.ca/index.php/main/article/view/35/43

Laura Felschow

Laura Felschow was born in Buffalo, NY and worked in the film & television industry in Buffalo, New York City, and Toronto. Interests include science fiction and fantasy television, queer theory, performativity & identity, and fandom studies.

Link to article in the Journal of Transformative Works and Culture: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/134

Jacob Hustedt

Jacob Hustedt completed his BA in English Literature and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois- Urbana-Champaign in 2007. He continued his studies in the UK, earning an MA in Sexual Dissidence in Literature and Culture from the University of Sussex . At UT, his dissertation work focuses on the correlative relationship between the growth of urban centers of information technology in India and the simultaneous emergence of LGBT activist organizations in these cities. His interests are in the confluence of queer theory, new media theory, and theories of diaspora and the new global city.

Lokeilani Kaimana

Lokeilani Kaimana is writing her dissertation,Visual Experiments in Speculative Cinema, based on the multitextual cinemascapes of Shu Lea Cheang, Julie Dash, Cheryl Dunye, and Tina Takemoto. K's research and teaching interests include queer cinema and media studies, the American/transnational avant-garde, women of color, feminism and theoretical praxis, and dystopian camp aesthetics. They specialize in queer and feminist histories of representation, and their work examines alternative archives and multi-media collaborations. K earned an A.B. from Smith College and a M.A. from The New School. They are currently the Mendenhall Dissertation Fellow at Smith where they teach Queer Cinema/ Queer Media and Film Theory. K has worked as an editor for flow tv, as a contributing member forEnglish andThird World Literature Review of Books,and as part of the editorial collective forThe Velvet Light Trap. Their work can be found in Film& History,The Velvet Light Trap, online at flowtv.org, and forthcoming in Black Cinema Aesthetics Revisitedand the anthology, We Carry these Memories inside of We: Daughters of the Dustand the Black Arts Aesthetic of Julie Dash.

Jennifer Kang

Jennifer has lived in Philadelphia, New Jersey and South Korea, and her research interests are centered on global media, television program flows, media industries, and the Korean Wave. She has earned her BA and MA in Communication from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea and a second MA in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin. She has worked as an editor at Flow and as a research assistant at the Foundation for Broadcast Culture.

Claire Shinhea Lee

Claire Shinhea Lee is a Ph.D candidate in RTF. She has a Master’s in media studies from Korea University. She has work experience in Satellite Digital Mobile Broadcasting company (TU) and Korean Portal Service company (NAVER). Her research interests include critical audience studies (focus on gender)and transnational digital culture in migration. Also, she is interested in issues related to young children's media use and cultures of production. She has published articles in the International Journal of Communication, Media, Culture & Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Asian Journal of Communication, and Asian Women.

Kyung Sun (Karen) Lee

Kyung Sun (Karen) Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in RTF. She received her B.A. from Korea University and M.S. in Journalism and Mass Communication from Iowa State University. Kyung Sun’s research is informed by critical theory and political economy of communication. Her research interests intersect in the areas of globalization, nation branding, and media as a site of struggle over meaning making and voice. Her works have appeared inInternational Journal of Communication,Journalism Studies, and in book chapters.Kyung Sun is a member of the Global Media Research Group.

Xiaoqian Li

Xiaoqian Li is a doctoral candidate in Media Studies in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research has focused on social and health effects of information and communication technologies and digital inequalities in both the United States and China. She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as International Journal of Communication, Computers in Human Behavior, Communication Theory, and so on. 

Anne Major

Annie Major has a BA in film studies from the University of South Carolina and a MA in Media Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Her current research interests include digital distribution platforms, global media networks and transnational cinema. Annie worked for the Austin Film Society, and haspublishedin theFlowjournal. She is a coordinating editor ofThe Velvet Light Trapand a member of the Global Media Research Group.

Daniel Mauro

Daniel Mauro received a BA from the University of Rochester and an MA from the University of Kansas. He is currently preparing his doctoral dissertation focused on the politics of amateur media. Other research interests include cultural historiography, media archives, and democratic communication. He is an editor forThe Velvet Light Trap, and has published inThe Moving ImageandFlow. He has worked in media preservation and production, and his video projects have appeared in installations and festivals internationally.

Paul Monticone

Paul Monticone's research interests include classical-era Hollywood cinema, production practices and genre cycles in popular American cinema from the transitional era to divorcement, and historiography, as well as non-theatrical cinema created by and related to the electrical utility industry in the 1920s and 30s. His dissertation project focuses on theAmerican film industry's major trade organization, the Motion PictureProducer and Distributor's Association, from its founding through the mid-1960s. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Toronto,and Masters degree is from Concordia University in Montreal. His work is published and forthcoming in the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, TheVelvet Light Trap, and the Quarterly Review of Film and Video.

Michael Nevradakis

Ph.D. Candidate, estimated graduation December 2017. Dissertation in progress titled "From the Polis to Facebook: Social Media and the Development of a New Greek Public Sphere." Fulbright Scholar 2012-2013, Onassis Foundation Scholar 2016-17, Erasmus+ Scholar 2016, Greek State Scholarships Foundation Scholar 2013-2014. Research interests include social/new media, broadcast media, the media industry, telecommunications policy, alternative and community media. Journalist (Mint Press News), Radio Producer (Dialogos Radio), General Manager/Program Director (WCSQ-LP Radio). BA (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa '05, Stony Brook University, Political Science major, Media Arts & Interantional Studies minors), MA '07 (Stony Brook University, Public Policy).

Michael O'Brien

Research Interests: Contemporary distribution patterns and technologies, global cinephilia, paracinema histories, reception studies, sports media, and media authorship.

Nicholas Bestor

Nick Bestor is a doctoral candidate in Media Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation “Playing in Licensed Storyworlds: Games, Franchises, and Fans” (tentative tile) studies the ways analog and digital games are used to explore and develop popular franchise storyworlds. He earned his MA in Film and Media Studies from Emory University; his Master’s thesis examined The CW network’s formation in 2006 and its targeting of the female 18-34 demographic. His research interests include analog gaming, transmedia storytelling, animation, and the US television industry.  

Julian Etienne Gomez

Julian Etienne is an international student from Mexico City with a background in linguistics and library and information studies. Julian’s main research interests include media archaeology, media cultures and memory practices in Latin America. His dissertation project deals with non-theatrical film and substandard moving image technologies in Mexico. He is a member of the Global Media Research student organization at UT and is involved in programming activities through the collective Latitude Cinema and Screens Arts from the Global South. 

Jinsook Kim

Jinsook Kim earned her B.A. in History Education from Korea University and M.A. in Women’s Studies from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea. She worked as a researcher at the Korean Women’s Institute, Ewha Womans University and Korean Women’s Development Institute. Jinsook’s research interests are in feminist perspectives on new media technologies, hate speech, and social movements. Her work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Feminist Media Studies, Communication, Culture & Critique, and an edited anthology Mediating Misogyny: Gender, Technology, and Harassment (2018). She is a recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies, the Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, the POSCO Graduate Research Fellowship for Korean Studies, the Korean American Communication Association Dissertation Award, and top paper awards from conferences including ICA and AEJMC. She is currently working on a dissertation exploring online misogyny and anti-hate feminist activism in South Korea.

Morgan O'Brien

Lucia Palmer

Lucia Palmer is a doctoral candidate in the Radio-Television-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research is informed by critical theory and cultural studies, in particular by the work of feminist and postcolonial scholars. Currently her research interests include the intersection between media discourses and constructions of nationality, gender, race and sexuality, with a focus especially on the context of the U.S-Mexico border region. Additionally, she is interested in how cultural and political movements utilize the media, in particular alternative and independent media formats, to struggle over social processes of meaning production.

Published work:

Palmer, L. (2013). Sluts, brats, and sextuplets: The dangers of reality television for children and teen participants. Studies in popular culture, 36(1), 123-143.

"How Online Community Games can Encroach into the Physical World, and Improve It"

July 2011 for University of Colorado, Boulder's Digital Media Test Kitchen

http://testkitchen.colorado.edu/community-games/

Jacqueline Pinkowitz

Jackie’s primary research interests include American film and cultural history in the 1950s and 1960s and the representation of the American South in film and television. She is also interested in critical race studies, gender studies, film stardom and fandom, the history of the Hollywood studio system, and gothic film and literature. Her background is in media studies and literature and she earned her M.A. from New York University in Cinema Studies. Jackie is an editor for the Flow journal, in which she has also published, serves on the programming committee for the Flow Conference, and is working with the student editorial board of the Velvet Light Trap journal.

Published work:

http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/247/253

Alexis Schrubbe

Alexis grew up in the Milwaukee area and attended the University of Wisconsin, earning a BA in Political Science and East European and Russian Studies. She has lived in Moscow, Russia, and also traveled throughout Siberia. She has an MA from the University of Texas in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies where her research focused on how young Russians use the Internet. Her research interests involve Internet infrastructure, the public sphere, US information policy, and issues of Internet access/use. In her free time she enjoys recording podcasts for an online educational series entitled, "SlavTalk Radio", getting into vigorous debates regarding deregulation, and trying to find somewhere to play ice hockey in Austin.