Faculty and Student Scholarship

Faculty and students in the Department of Radio-Television -Film make significant contributions to scholarship in the field of film and media. Through journals and books, and in their research and teaching, they dive deep into critical and contextual approaches to the study of media objects, industries, and culture in a broad array of subfields. Doctoral students go on to fulfilling careers throughout academia and in industry.

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UT Radio-Television-Film doctoral alumni are producing valuable research, publishing innovative work, contributing to academic and policy debates on key communication and media issues, and inspiring better media practices. The professional placement for scholars from the Department of Radio-Television-Film graduate programs is highly successful. Below is a list of recent doctoral graduates, their dissertation titles, and when available, where they are presently teaching and researching.

2025

Andy Wright
Dissertation: Duly Noted: How Cell Phone Notifications are Constructed Strategically and How Generation Z Undergraduates Resist Them
Position: Assistant Executive Director of Los Alamos Arts Council

Kristina Brüning
Dissertation: Acting Professional: Navigating Hollywood in the Digital Age

Luis Rivera-Figueroa
Dissertation: Reggaetón on the Global Stage: Place, Race, and Mainstream Latinidad
Position: Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of English, Arizona State University

Paxton Haven
Dissertation: IRL+URL: Platformization of Underground Dance Music Culture
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Communication Arts Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Pete Johnson
Dissertation: The Risk Myth: Reassessing the Financial Cultures, Practices, and Structures of U.S. Television, 1945–2013
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism and Media Management, School of Communication, University of Miami

2024

Ash d’Harcourt
Dissertation: "Reimagining Masculinity: Media Reception and Subcultural Practices in Drag King Performance" 
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication, Southwestern University

Lily Kunda
Dissertation: "Target Practice: The Rise of Race-Based Corporate Social Responsibility in 2010s Woke America"
Position: Assistant Teaching Professor of Africana Studies and American Studies, College of William & Mary

Rusty Hatchell
Dissertation: "Mapping the Multiverse: Narrative Continuity and Industrial Logics in the Shared Television Universes of DC’s Superheroes, 1992-2022"
Position: Visiting Lecturer of Film and Media Studies, Texas A&M University

Stephany Noh
Dissertation: "Streaming K-dramas:  The Evolution of a National Industry and Cultural Form, 2016-2023"
Position: Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Department of Communication & Media, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi

2023

Daelena Tinnin-Gadson
Dissertation: Emotion Pictures, Affect, Return and Futurity in the Visual Life of Black Feminisms
Position: Assistant Professor, English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina

Eric Forthun 
Dissertation: Tonight and the Construction, Formation, & Decline of U.S. Late-Night Television
Position: Assistant Teaching Professor, Film and Media Studies, Arizona State University

Melissa Santillana
Dissertation: "Destrúyelo todo: The Women behind the Mexican Feminist Spring"
Position: Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University

2022

Brett Siegel
Dissertation: “Protecting the Shield: How the NFL Navigated Institutional and Ideological Crisis in the Trump Era”
Position: Assistant Professor, Communication, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Jaewon Choi
Dissertation: “Exploring the Surveillance Culture in the Context of Smart Health: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between South Korea and the U.S.”
Position: Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University

Jing Wang
Dissertation: Globalizing Independent Cinema: Transnational Circulation of the Independent Chinese Documentary (1991-2017)
Position: Assistant Professor, Film and Media, Emory University

Kathy Cacace
Dissertation: Getting in the Way:  New Approaches to Rape Joke Discourse and Women’s Comedy about Sexual Violence
Position: Acquisitions Manger, Infobase 

Maria Skouras
Dissertation: “Soft Power and Strategic Communication: @america in Jakarta, Indonesia”
Position: Staff member, Communication & Engagement Lab, Office of Innovation, State of New Jersey

Nathan Rossi
Dissertation: “The Mediated Identities of Central American Adoptees: Community Building and Resistance in Digital Spaces”
Position: Assistant Professor of Instruction, Screen Cultures, Northwestern University

Selena Dickey
Dissertation: “Fringe Access: Mapping Local Television Distribution, 1952-1978”
Position: Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, Furman University

2021

Briana Barner
Dissertation: The Last Place They Thought Of: Black Podcasts and the Performance of Marginalization 
Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Maryland

Kate Cronin
Dissertation: “’News, In Pictures if Possible!”: The Material Flow of Early Television Newsfilm”
Position: Data & Strategy Analyst, Crown Family Philanthropies

Richelle Crotty
Dissertation: “Mobile Networks of Power”
Position: Deputy Director, Technical Assistance, National Telecommunications and Information Administration 

Soyoung Park
Dissertation: Data Rights in the 21st Century: Exploring the Boundaries of Empowerment in Blockchain Social Media Settings  
Position: Research Professor, Humanities Research Institute at Chung-Ang University (Seoul, Korea)

2020

Alexis Schrubbe
Dissertation: "Homework Gaps and Connectivity Canyons: Education, Broadband, and the Shattered Myth of the Network Society"
Position: Project Manager, ready.net 

Daniel Mauro
Dissertation: "Locating the Politics of Amateur Media"
Position: National Audio-Visual Conservation Center Curator at the Library of Congress

Gejun Huang
Dissertation: "New Frontier of Digital Media and Entertainment: Exploring Entrepreneurship in Chinese Digital Game Industry"
Position: Assistant Professor, School of Communication at Soochow University

Lesley Willard
Dissertation: "From Hobby to Side Hustle: Fan Artist Professionalization in the Post-Network Era"
Position: Assistant Professor, Visual and Media Arts, Emerson College

Morgan O'Brien
Dissertation: "Rejecting Nostalgia: Retro Jamming in Devolver Digital’s Independent Video Games"
Position: UX Researcher, Dev Launchers

Ramna Walia
Dissertation: "Intertwined Networks of Travel: The Located Mobility of Malegaon Media Culture"
Position: Assistant Professor, School of Modern Media, UPES

Tim Piper
Dissertation: "Transition Game: Television and the National Basketball Association During the Multichannel Shift, 1970-1984"
Position: Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, Furman University