RTF Doctoral Graduates

The professional placement for scholars from the Department of Radio-Television-Film graduate programs is second to none. Below is a list of recent doctoral graduates, their dissertation titles, and when available, where they are presently teaching and researching.

2019

Nick Bestor
Dissertation: Playing in Licensed Storyworlds: Games, Franchises, and Fans
Position: Lecturer, The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Radio-Television-Film

Annie Major
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Trinity University in San Antonio

Daniel Mauro, Ph.D.
Position: Two-year curatorial fellowship at private art gallery:  https://www.glenstone.org/

Paul Monticone, Ph.D.                                                                         
Position: Assistant Professor, Rowan University

Jacqueline Pinkowitz, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Reel South: Race, Region, and the American Film Industry in the Era of Black Civil Rights, 1954-1976
Position: Visiting Assistant professor, St. Lawrence University.

Hogeun Seo, Ph.D.
Position: Assistant Professor, Mike Curb Collage of Entertainment and Music Business, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

2018

Laura Felschow, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Wonder Women: Gender and Production in the Superhero Genre
Position: Assistant Professor at SUNY (State University of New York) at Oneonta

Jennifer Minsoo Kang, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Unboxing Television: The Rise of Korean Web Dramas and Expansion of Independent Production Companies in the 2010s
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor & Postdoctoral Scholar, DePauw University
https://www.depauw.edu/arts-and-culture/arts/theatre/communication-and-theatre-faculty/

Peter Kunze, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Staging a Comeback: Film and Theater Convergence at Disney, 1982-1998
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Eckerd College

Xiaoqian Li
Dissertation: Social network site use, social capital, and acculturation: a comparative study of Facebook and Renren.com use by Chinese international students in the United States
Position: Assistant Professor of Communication, Illinois Institute of Technology
https://humansciences.iit.edu/faculty/xiaoqian-li

Lucia Palmer
Position: Assistant Professor of Communication, Heidelberg University
https://www.heidelberg.edu/directory/lucia-palmer

2017

Tupur Chatterjee, Ph.D.
Position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Global Media Studies Initiative at Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan
https://lsa.umich.edu/comm/people/regular-faculty/tupur-chatterjee.html

Xueting Liao, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Fashioning China: Precarious Creativity of Women Designers in Shanzhai Culture
Position: Assistant Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Colleen Montgomery, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Animating the Voice: An Industrial Analysis of Vocal Performance in Disney and Pixar Feature Animation
Position: Assistant Professor, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ

Vijay Parthasarathy, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Birth of the Cool: Global Flows and the Growth of English Language Stand-Up Comedy in Mumbai

Michael Rennett, Ph.D.
Dissertation: How Grown-Ups Are Born: The Emerging-Adult Genre and American Film and Television
Position: Lecturer, The University of Texas at Austin

Adolfo Mora, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Seeing Color and Television: What Do Millennials' Television Practices Tell Us About Post-Raciality?
Position: Adjunct, Texas A&M International University

Peter Kovacs, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Big Tobacco and Broadcasting, 1923-1960: An Interdiscipllinary History

Swapnil Rai, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Networked Bollywood: Star Switching Power and the Global Trajectories of Indian Cinema
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Michigan in Film, TV, and Digital Media  https://lsa.umich.edu/ftvm

Elizabeth Bolton, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Personalizing Politics: Producing Accountability on Pakistan's News Television

Caitlin McClune, Ph.D.
Dissertation: 'Digital Unhu' in Zimbabwe: Critical Digital Studies from the Global South
Position: Postdoc, the University of Texas at Austin

Amanda Landa, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Contemporary Japanes Seishun Eiga Cinema 

Adam Clark Williams III, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Creating While Black: Digital Participation, Digital Expressions, and Cultural Capital Among Black Teens in Austin, Texas

2016

Jean Lauer, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Mexican Film Festivals and Industry Development: Guanajuato, Guadalajara, and Morelia, and the Reemergence of a National Film Industry
Position: Associate Professor, Austin Community College, Austin, TX; Executive Director, Cine Las Americas

Joao Beira, Ph.D.
Dissertation: 3D Embodied Projection Mapping and Sensing Bodies: A Study in Interactive Dance Performance 

Yago Parra Moutinho, Ph.D.
Dissertation: The Development and Experience of Gesture and Brainwave Interaction in Audiovisual Performances

Bahaa Gameel, Ph.D.
Dissertation: ICTS Readiness among MOOC Learners: A Cross-National Analysis
Position: Assistant Professor, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL

Charlotte Howell, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Divine Programming: Religion and Prime-Time American Television Production in the Post-Network Era
Position: Assistant Professor, Boston University, Boston, MA

William Moner, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Toward a Storytelling Systems Analysis Model:  A Situational Analysis of Three Global Crowdsourced Documentary Media Projects
Position: Assistant Professor, Elon University, Elon, NC

Paul Gansky, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Ill Communication: Designing Media, Preventing Risks, and Defining Responsibility

Katherine Haenschen, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Get @ The Vote: Using Facebook and Email to Increase Voter Turnout
Position: Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech University

Ikram Toumi, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Information and Computer Technology and the Digital Divide in the Post-Revolution Tunisia

2015

Laura Dixon, Ph.D.
Dissertation: The Influence of the World Wide Web on Documentary Form, Distribution, and Audience Relations: The Cases of Sin by Silence and This Is Not a Conspiracy Theory
Position: Media Dissemination Manager, Texas Policy Evaluation Project, The University of Texas at Austin

Stuart Davis, Ph.D.
Dissertation:Networking the Favelas: Leveraging International Outreach to Support Digital Journalism in Rio de Janeiro's Urban Peripheries
Position: Assistant Professor, Baruch College

Yoonmo Sang, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Copyright and the Future of Digital Culture: Application of the First Sale Doctrine to Digital Copyrigthed Works
Position: Assistant Professor, Howard University

Andres Lombana, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Networked and Disconnected: Latino/Hispanic Immigrant Youths, Digital Media, and Assimilation into the U.S.
Position: Research Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University

Alexander Cho, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Sensuous Participation: Queer Youth of Color, Affect, and Social Media
Position: Postdoctoral Scholar at University of California, Irvine at the Humanities Research Institute

Jeremiah Spence, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Exploring Trends in Brazilian Television Consumption: A Quantitative Study of Major Urban Centers from 2002 to 2014 and a Case Study of Two Rural Communities in Amazonian Region
Position: Assistant Professor, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Amsterdam

Alfred Martin, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Trapped in a Generic Closet: The Black-Cast Sitcom and the Black Gay Man
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Iowa https://clas.uiowa.edu/commstudies/people/alfred-martin

Keara Goin, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Dominican Identity in Flux: Media Consumption, Negotiation, and Afro-Carribean Subjectivity in the U.S.
Position: Assistant Professor, UVA 

2014

Suzanne Schulz, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Lucknow Screens: Cinema, State and Everyday in Postcolonial India
Position:  Professor, Bard High School Early College in Queens, NY

Joshua Gleich, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Hollywood Location Shooting in San Francisco and the Aesthetics of Urban Decline, 1945-1975
Position: Assistant Professor, the University of Arizona

Christopher McConnell, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Digital Inclusing and Techno-capital in Austin, Texas
Position:  Data Analyst for the City of Austin, Texas

Ana Boa-Ventura, Ph.D.
Dissertation:  Social Features of Web Assisted Tobacco Interventions (WATIS): Case Studies
Position: Consultant and Writer, Houston, Texas

Eliot Chayt Ph.D.
Dissertation: Disaster, Dystopia, and Exploration:  Science-Fiction Cinema 1959-1971
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher, The University of Texas at Austin

Elizabeth Maclean, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Not Your Abeula's Telenovela: Mujeres Asesinas as a Hybrid Latin American Fiction Format
Position: Education Consultant, Houston, Texas

2013

Jessalynn Marie Keller, Ph.D.
Dissertation:  Still Alive and Kicking: Girl Bloggers and Feminist Politics in a “Postfeminist” Age
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Calgary

Jose Rafael Lopez Islas, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Digital Literacy and Academic Success in Online Education for Underprivileged Communities:  The PREP@NET Case
Position: Director, Office of Assessment, Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico)

Richard Colin Tait, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Robert De Niro’s Method: Acting, Authorship and Agency in the New Hollywood (1967 – 1980)
Position: Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University

Morgan Blue, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Performing 21^st Century Girlhood: Girls, Postfeminist Discourse, and the Disney Star Machine

Ji-Hyun Ahn, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Visualizing Race: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the Struggle for Koreanness in Contemporary South Korean Television
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Washington, Tacoma

Curran Nault, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Queer as Punk: Queercore and the Production of an Anti-Normative Media Subculture
Position: Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at Austin Department of Radio-Television-Film

2012

Manuel G. Aviles-Santiago, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Digitizing Ethnonational Identities: Multimediatic Representation of Puerto Rican Soldiers
Position: Assistant Professor, Arizona State University

Hans-Martin Liebing, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Transforming European Cinema: Transnational Filmmaking in the Era of Global Conglomerate Hollywood
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Worth the Risk: The Role of Regulations and Experiences in Shaping Teens’ Engagement with Digital Media
Position: Assistant Professor, University of North Texas

Sujin Choi, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Flows of Information/Influence and Diversity of Content within Online Public For a in the Context of Civil Society
Position: Assistant Professor, Kookmin University (Korea)

Holly Ann Custard, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Pursuing Development with Educational Technology Standards: Complicating Narratives of ICTS in the Classroom
Position: Deputy Director, Institute Partnerships and Outreach, Strada Institute for the Future of Work

Ali Fuat Sengul, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Cinema, Space and Nation: The Production of Dogu in Cinema in Turkey
Position:  Assistant Professor, Mardin Artuklu University (Turkey)

2011

Anne Helen Petersen, Ph.D.
Dissertation: The Gossip Industry: Producing and Distributing Star Images,  Celebrity Gossip, and Entertainment News 1910-2010
Postiion: Features Writer for Buzzfeed

Shu-Ching Chan, Ph.D.
Dissertation: The Bamboo Cinema: A Formal, Cultural and Industrial Analysis of Hong Kong Cinema In The 1990

Elissa Helen Nelson, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Teen Films of the 1980s: Genre, New Hollywood, and Generation X
Position: Assistant Professor, Bronx Community College

Hermin Erin Lee, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Korean Immigrant Adolescents' Engagement with the Internet: Understanding the Importance of Cultural Orientations and Bicultural Competence
Position: Assistant Professor, Hankuk University (Korea)

Courtney Brannon Donoghue, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Lighting Up Screens Around the World: Sony's Local Language Production Strategy Meets Contemporary Brazilian and Spanish Cinema
Position: Assistant Professor, Oakland University (Michigan)

Brett Robert Caraway, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Resistance Commons: File-Sharing Litigation and The Social System Of Commoning
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Toronto (Canada)

R. Christopher Lucas, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Crafting Digital Cinema: Cinematographers in Contemporary Hollywood
Position:  Independent Film Producer (Oregon)

Matthew Thomas Payne, Ph.D.
Dissertation: The Ludic Wars: The Interactive Pleasures of Post-9/11 Military Video Games
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame

David Anthony Uskovich, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Radio Friendly Paradigm Shifter: Progressive College Broadcasting in The 1980s
Position:  Adjunct Lecturer, St. Edward’s University

Elissa Arra Fineman, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Becoming a Media Activist: Linking Culture, Identity, and Web Design
Position: Instructional Design Specialist, Pearson North America/Embanet Compass

Najin Jun, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Strong-tie Diversity and Weak-tie Diversity: The Paradoxical Roles of Internet Use and Political Tolerance in Supporting Political Diversity and Participation  
Position: Assistant Professor, Hannem University (South Korea)   

Kevin Lee Sanson, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Goodbye Brigadoon: Place, Production, and Identity in Global Glascow
Position: Assistant Professor, Queensland University of Technology (Australia)