Media faculty and TAs make list of teachers ranked as excellent

CongratsCongratulations to all of the College of Media faculty and teaching assistants who were ranked as excellent by their students!

This list is based on Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms completed by students during the Spring 2022 semester. Only those instructors who distributed ICES forms at least once during this time period and who released their data for publication are included in the list. View the complete list.

Note: * denotes that the instructor ratings were outstanding.

 

ADVERTISING

STEVE HALL – ADV 150

CHANG-DAE HAM – ADV 281 (Summer 2022)

* TERRY KASDAN – ADV 409

* AMANDA MABRY-FLYNN – ADV 283

* EWA MASLOWSKA – ADV 461

MICHELLE NELSON – ADV 582 

* MARISA PEACOCK – ADV 491, ADV 498

SELA SAR – ADV 588

ALLISON VANCE – ADV 350

* STEPHEN WARREN – ADV 314

CARRIE WILSON-BROWN – ADV 290

* MIKE YAO – ADV 460

 

JOURNALISM

JOSH HEUMAN – JOUR 205

CAROL LOMBARDI – JOUR 220

MARGARET YEE MAN NG – JOUR 425

STEPHEN WARREN – JOUR 360, JOUR 361

 

MEDIA & CINEMA STUDIES

DEREK LONG – MACS 262

* JENNY OYALLON-KOLOSKI – MACS 504

 

TEACHING ASSISTANTS

* D. CARRILLO FUCHS – MACS 101

Y. GAO – MACS 100

J. GU – MACS 101

Y. KANG – MACS 100

A. MUKHOPADHYAY – MACS 101

J. PYO – MACS 100

New professor Garza connects journalism history to the present



Melita Garza

Melita Garza, an award-winning journalist, media historian, and a new associate professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism, sees a reporter as a detective investigating a larger story. And she’s most interested in the stories that haven’t been told.

“The idea of trying to piece together the missing pages of history—that is the most fascinating to me,” Garza said. “I know that these stories have been overlooked in the past, so I want to uncover them.”

Garza is interested in how history can be used to understand current issues surrounding representation, diversity, and equity. It’s also the foundation of the class she’s teaching this fall, JOUR 250: Journalism Ethics & Diversity.

“I bring up historical issues, always,” Garza said. “Because I think it’s not possible to understand the present if we don’t understand the past.”

She also wants to ground the course in psychology.

“I think it is important, no matter what you plan to do with your career, to be aware of how our minds work to short circuit our ability to get the full picture or get the full story,” she said. “Understanding the psychology of diversity is just as important as understanding the history of diversity.”

With more than 20 years of experience at professional media outlets such as the Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg News in New York, and the McKinsey Quarterly in London, Garza is an expert in journalism history, media diversity, business reporting, English- and Spanish-language news, the media and civil rights, and literary journalism. For the past decade, she was on the journalism faculty at Texas Christian University.

After graduating from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in government in 1983, Garza began her journalism career. She was an inaugural member of Los Angeles Times’ Minority Editorial Training Program. She then worked at the Milwaukee Journal for a few years before landing a position at the Chicago Tribune. 

During her 15-year tenure at the Chicago Tribune, Garza covered a range of stories that spanned city government, immigration, and big business. She did a lot of “old-fashioned reporting” before the Internet became a resource, and her investigative work on the 2001 Firestone tire failures led to a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

“It was an adventure in terms of finding out what went wrong at the tire plant indicator and how that led to potentially many deaths,” Garza said.

As a reporter, Garza was always interested in business journalism, seeing business as a very dominant influence “in defining public discourse,” she said.

She earned her MBA from the University of Chicago while working as associate editor for McKinsey Quarterly, a London-based business publication.

“Part of the problem with being a journalist is you’re always on the outside looking in,” Garza said. “And I thought that maybe I could get better insight into business if I did this.”

While in business school, she realized how much she enjoyed research and digging deeper into topics. And her peers in class encouraged her, saying she would make a good teacher. 

Garza worked at Bloomberg news before pursuing a PhD in journalism and mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation focused on a Spanish-language newspaper in San Antonio, Texas, La Prensa, which she had heard stories about from her parents. She compared La Prensa’s coverage of Mexican immigrants during the Great Depression to that found in English-language newspapers, then drew parallels to how immigration was portrayed in the news media in 2008 during the financial crisis.

This fall, in addition to her teaching, Garza will be editing a collection of essays called The Routledge Companion to American Journalism History, which she described as a re-imagining of journalism history.

She’s also working on an oral history project on how the lived experiences of journalists of color are valued or not valued in newsrooms across the country.

Garza said she’s excited to be back in Illinois, and especially getting to know more people in the College of Media.

“I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of new students from very diverse backgrounds,” she said. “I’m just super excited to be coming and meeting all of you.”

 

Melita Garza

Associate Professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism
Director of Graduate Studies

Affiliations

  • Department of Journalism
  • Institute of Communications Research 

Education

  • PhD in Journalism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media 
  • MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business 
  • AB in Government, Harvard University

Course Specialties

  • Journalism History 
  • Business Journalism 
  • Diversity 
  • Qualitative Research Methods 
  • Oral History

Background

Melita M. Garza is an associate professor and the Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism in the Department of Journalism. She is the 2022-2023 Chair of the Standing Committee on Research for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She was a fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. Prior to getting her PhD, Melita M. Garza was an award-winning journalist, working at the Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg news, and the Los Angeles Times during a two-decade-long career.

Awards

Research and Creative Endeavor

Melita Garza is an American journalism historian who studies news as an agent of democracy, specializing in English- and Spanish-language news, the immigrant press, and coverage of underrepresented groups. She is the lead editor of The Routledge Companion to American Journalism History (2024). She is the author of They Came to Toil: Newspaper Representations of Mexicans and Immigrants in the Great Depression (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), which was a finalist for the Tankard Book Award, the Frank Luther Mot/ Kappa Tau Alpha Award, and the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Tejas Fojo Award. Her research has also won awards from the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) divisions of: History, Minorities and Communication, and International Communication.

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Shiyue (Jennifer) Zhang

Shiyue "Jennifer" Zhang

Email: shiyue2@illinois.edu  

Research Interests

Jennifer is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Communications Research. Her research aims to equip communicators with theory-driven and evidence-based strategies to navigate the digital landscape more effectively. From a social scientific perspective, she examines how social media messaging strategies in Public Service Announcements (PSAs)—particularly humor and visuals—shape public opinion, cognitive processing, and behavioral intentions. She also investigates social media environments, particularly what branding content generates social buzz.

Her dissertation explores the persuasive impact of visual formats on shaping public understanding of health. Using a multi-method design combining experiments and eye-tracking, this dissertation examines the cognitive mechanisms underlying visual message processing in health misinformation contexts. This work advances theoretical understanding of how people process visual misinformation and corrections. It offers practical implications for designing effective health promotion campaigns.

Recent Publications/Presentations

McKasy, M., Yeo, S. K., Zhang, J. S.#, Cacciatore, M. A., Allen, H. W.#, & Su, L. Y.-F. (2025). Support for regulation of enhanced geothermal systems research: Examining the role of familiarity, credibility, and social endorsement. Geothermal Energy, 13(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40517-025-00346-5

Yeo, S. K., Freiling, I., Yeon, J.#, Zhang, J. S.#,McKasy, M., Cacciatore, M. A., Su, L. Y.-F., & Siskind, S. R. (2025). Satire and perceptions of aggressiveness and trustworthiness in communication about renewable energy. Science Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10755470251345746

Zhang, J. S.#, & Su, L. Y.-F. (2025, November). More vivid, more deeply processed: Exploring the roles of message format in misinformation and correction of health misbeliefs. 111st National Communication Association (NCA) Annual Convention, Denver, CO.

McKasy, M., Cacciatore, M. A., Yeo, S. K., Zhang, J. S.#, Cook, J., Olaleye, R.#, & Su, L. Y.-F. (2024). Engaging the dismissive: An assessment of strategies to support global warming action. Public Understanding of Science, 33(2), 227-240. http://doi.org/10.1177/09636625231186785

Freiling, I., Cacciatore, M. A., Su, L. Y.-F., Yeon, J.#, Park, S.#, Du, W.#, Zhang, J. S.#, Yeo, S. K., & Siskind, S. (2024). Communicating about renewable energy with satire: The influence of gentle and harsh humor tones on perceived message credibility and information reliance. Science Communication.https://doi.org/10.1177/10755470241293361

Gupta, M.#, Kazybayeva, A.#, Paltaratskaya, V.#, Zhang, J. S.#, Wise, K., & Peterson, M. (2024, August). Visual attention, comprehension, and memory for visual metaphors in advertising. Presented at the 107th Annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Philadelphia, PA.

#Graduate student co-author

Courses Taught

Instructor of Record

  • ADV 483 – Audience Analysis, SP26, FA25, FA23

Teaching Assistant

  • ADV 283 – Advertising Research Methods, SP24
  • ADV 281 – Advertising and Brand Strategy, SP23, FA22
  • ADV 150 – Intro to Advertising, SP22

Awards and Honors

  • S. Watson and Elizabeth Dunn Fellowship
  • James Webb Young (JWY) Fund Graduate Student Research Award
  • James Webb Young (JWY) Fund for Summer Research in Advertising
  • AEJMC 2023 First Place MCS Faculty Paper Award
  • Lynne Blanton Student Travel Award

What Most People Don’t Know about Me

I’m an outdoor sports enthusiast. I enjoy various outdoor activities, including hiking, camping, mountaineering, cycling, climbing, skiing, kayaking, fishing, kite surfing, zip-lining, and more!

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Helping Students Be Wise Consumers of Media



Educators at the IMEDIA media literacy workshop

Twenty-one Illinois public school educators learned how to incorporate media literacy into their curricula this summer through an IMEDIA media literacy workshop on campus, hosted by faculty from the College of Media and College of Education.

“Media literacy is especially important in light of the last presidential election and the amount of disinformation and misinformation that is pervasive in the U.S.,” said Professor Sarah McCarthey, head of the Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education. “It’s more and more critical that we equip students with the ability to discern what’s factual from what’s not.”

The workshop, attended by librarians and teachers from language arts, social studies, special education, and art, was developed by the College of Media and the College of Education. The two colleges recently jointly launched a program entitled “Initiative for Media Education Inquiry and Action (IMEDIA),” along with the cofounder of the Illinois Media Literacy Coalition, Michael Spikes of Northwestern University.

The workshop was designed to better equip teachers and students with media literacy skills to encourage mindful media consumption and production and to help teachers meet the needs of a state mandate requiring public high schools to teach media literacy beginning with the 2022-2023 school year.

“Many of us in the College of Media have been working on media literacy-related research and teaching in the last several years,” said Professor Stephanie Craft, head of the Department of Journalism. “When we heard about the new law, we wanted to be able to turn that work into action. Teaming up with curriculum and instruction experts in the College of Education seemed an ideal way to do that.”

The IMEDIA team introduced participants to key concepts in the framework for media literacy, with a focus on news media literacy. Educators were:

  • shown how to help students identify propaganda and see how the media have been used for social and political change throughout history,
  • instructed in how to use documentaries to increase media literacy, and
  • taught by a local Urbana High School student and undergraduate students from the College of Media how students are both creators and consumers of social media content.

The IMEDIA collaboration is working to build a robust critical media literacy curriculum in Illinois schools. Interested teachers will continue working with IMEDIA for follow up on media literacy implementation throughout the 2022-2023 school year.

“Preparing Illinois students to successfully navigate an increasingly complex media environment is vital to their well-being and ability to participate in democratic life,” Craft said.

“The end goal is quite simple,” McCarthey added. “We want all of our students to be prepared to be critical media consumers.”

Learn more about IMEDIA.

IMEDIA team
IMEDIA team members include Professor Sarah McCarthey from the College of Education; Professor Amanda Ciafone from the College of Media; Michael Spikes from Northwestern University; doctoral student Sakshi Bhalla from the College of Media; Professor Michelle Nelson from the College of Media; Professor CL Cole from the College of Media; Professor Stephanie Craft from the College of Media; and Professor Jon Hale from the College of Education.
Educators at the IMEDIA media literacy workshop
Twenty-one public school educators attended the IMEDIA media literacy workshop held this summer at the Siebel Center for Design on campus.

Yan (Anna) Liu

Anna Yan Liu

Email: yanliu10@illinois.edu

Cohort: 2021

Research Interests

Anna’s research lies at the intersection of strategic communication, data and emerging data-driven technologies (algorithms and AI), consumer behaviors, and media sociology.

She takes a behavioral approach to study data and data-driven technologies (algorithms and AI) in message design and media exposure for consumer empowerment and societal good. Specifically, she studies people’s perceptions and behaviors surrounding data and data-driven technologies, focusing on three key questions: (1) how NGOs and brands ethically and effectively communicate data in message design to persuade consumer pro-social behaviors and promote consumer protection, (2) how people understand and strategically engage with algorithms to influence media exposure and public visibility on digital platforms, and (3) how AI biases, and people’s understanding of these biases, shape the influence of AI-generated content on people’s perceptions and behaviors.

Anna employs a mixed-method approach, using computational methods (e.g., engagement metrics, sentiment analysis, topic modeling, computational visual analysis), traditional quantitative (e.g., experiment, survey, content analysis), and qualitative methods (e.g., interview, netnography) in her research.

Anna’s research interest and teaching philosophy are informed by her 5 years of professional experience in Ipsos, a global marketing and consumer research company. Before joining ICR, Anna was a Senior Research Manager at Ipsos, where she conducted research on brands, advertising, media, products, and consumers using a various methods, including survey, experiment, content analysis, focus group, in-depth interview, observation, home visit, shop-along, consumer diary, eye-tracking, social media analytics, etc.

Anna earned a B.A. in journalism from Renmin University of China and an M.S.S.c. in advertising from Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Recent Publications/Presentations

Liu, A. Y. & Zhang, M. M. (Accepted). Positivity Bias in AI-Generated Summaries of User-Generated Content: Exploring Its Sources and Impact on Public Sentiment. Computational Communication Research. 

Liu, A. Y. (2025). Ephemeral Visibility and Externally Visible Production: How Algorithmic Automation Accelerates Fans’ Data Work. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251393480

Liu, A. Y., Ji, A. R., Taneja, H. & Nelson, M. R. (2025). Stakeholder-Desired Audiences: Fans’ Audience Data Imaginaries and How They Shape Industry Data Practices. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565251366412

Liu, A. Y., & Taneja, H. (2025). Visibility of K-pop in the US: Global Rankings, ‘Audience Mis-aggregation’, and Mainstream Attention to Niche Genre. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565251320755

Liu, A. Y. (2025, Jun 12-16). Context Matters: Exploring Consumers’ Sense-Making of Online Ratings in the Social Context. International Communication Association (ICA) Annual Conference, Denver, United States. 

Gong, Z., Chen, T., Liu, A. Y., Xuan, J., & Su, L. Y. F. (2025, March 6-9). Navigating Consumer Acceptance of Cultured Meat: An Exploratory Narrative Review of Communication Strategies. American Academy of Advertising (AAA) Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, United States.

Courses Taught

  • ADV 284: Consumer Insight (Teaching Assistant) 
  • ADV 281: Advertising Research Method (Instructor of Record) 
  • ADV 250: Advertising and Brand Strategy (Teaching Assistant) 
  • ADV 150: Introduction to Advertising (Teaching Assistant) 
  • MACS 100: Introduction to Popular TV & Movies (Teaching Assistant)

Awards and Honors

  • James Webb Young Grad Research Award, Department of Advertising, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
  • Bart A. Cummings Advertising Gift Fund (Research fund for dissertation), Department of Advertising, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign  
  • Petullo Fellowship, Department of Advertising, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign  
  • James Webb Young Travel Fund, Department of Advertising, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • MusicID 2024 Digital Research Fellowship

ICR student Rojas-Alvarez receives campus public engagement award

Rojas-Alvarez
Jorge Rojas-Alvarez. (Photo by Michelle Hassel.)

Jorge Rojas-Alvarez, a doctoral student at the Institute of Communications Research in the College of Media, was honored with the 2022 Campus Excellence in Public Engagement Award for Graduate/Professional Students. The Campus Awards for Excellence in Public Engagement are given to individuals at the University of Illinois who engage the public to address critical societal issues, and include a $2,000 stipend.

Most notably, Rojas-Alvarez contributed to the 211/Champaign County helpline that connects individuals in need with local social service organizations. The project—called 211: The Role of Information Resources + Services in Crisis Response—is a partnership between the Community Data Clinic at Illinois; NCSA’s Students Pushing Innovation internship program; and the community organizations Champaign County Mental Health Board, Champaign County Developmental Disabilities Board, Cunningham Township Supervisor’s Office, and United Way of Champaign.

Rojas-Alvarez said this award motivates him “to continue working on these types of projects involving collaborations between universities and local communities” and the award underscores how “UIUC takes seriously the value of this kind of work.”

As part of the Community Data Clinic team, which is directed by Anita Say Chan, associate professor in the Department of Media & Cinema Studies and in the School of Information Sciences, Rojas-Alvarez focused on redesigning the Champaign County Resources (CCR) website with community partners. For more than two years, Rojas-Alvarez organized and implemented improvements to make the 211 service more accessible and navigable to users. 

Rojas-Alvarez organized and led information sessions with nearly 50 CCR service providers, and coordinated their web updates. He engaged Latinx groups during the process. He also led the web design team and mentored Illinois engineering students who were involved.

The CCR website is now managed by a community-based board and features new resources and community directories that are more visible to potential clients, and has Spanish and French language options.

“The multi-language feature was based on the growing immigrant population in Champaign County,” Rojas-Alvarez said. “Additionally, I found that immigrants and refugees avoided using the 211 directory because they believed such contact would expose them to immigration authorities. Unfortunately, the old directory did not identify organizations that accept participants despite their immigration status. Under my suggestion and outreach, the new directory provides immigrant-friendly services.”

According to his nominators, Rojas-Alvarez demonstrated a forward-thinking mindset and leadership by organizing partnerships, group services, research, and funding to benefit the surrounding community. 

Rojas-Alvarez draws inspiration from designing technologies for social change. His passion for community-building combined with his ability to identify growth opportunities has helped to serve Champaign County residents.

Rojas-Alvarez’s background is in computer science and history of technology. In Colombia, he helped design public history exercises in national libraries, which emerged as spaces of dialogue between historical documental archives and the memories of users. 

View University of Illinois News Bureau press release.

—Holly Rushakoff

ICR welcomes 2022 cohort

The Institute of Communications Research is excited to announce our newest cohort! Please learn more about the students’ research interests in their profiles below and join us in welcoming them to the University of Illinois College of Media community this fall.

Jiyeon ChangJiyeon Chang received her master’s degree in communication and media and bachelor’s degrees in journalism and advertising & PR at Ewha Womans University, Seoul. Jiyeon studies the psychological and societal impacts of using new media. Her newest research focuses primarily on personal traits that determine psychological well-being and improvement in work skills in the virtual work environment. As a new student in ICR, she is interested in understanding collective actions and homophily in online and social media. She also wants to examine senior citizens’ new media usage to minimize information gaps and social disparities. Before joining ICR, Jiyeon worked in a government-funded research institute in South Korea. She has contributed to policy developments in the broadcasting and media fields in line with technological developments and changes in the media environment.

Jennifer CintronJennifer Cintron received her bachelor’s degree in English literature with a minor in film studies from North Central College. She then completed a master’s degree at Northern Illinois University, in English with a concentration in film and literature. Her research across these degrees has focused on adaption from the written to visual, emphasizing youth culture and social media. At a past conference, she has spoken on the choice of adaptation literature in youth media, as it affects ongoing conversations of cultural and historical awareness. With her new work at the ICR, she hopes to continue this path and research these ongoing changes that can be seen in the film medium.   

Namita GuptaNamita Gupta graduated from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi, receiving her bachelor’s in English, and she attained her master’s degree in English from Shiv Nadar University (India). Her research lies at the intersection of print and digital public sphere, where she aims to study the impact of new technologies on social and political discourse in visual and popular culture. Particularly, she is interested in examining how contesting notions of nationalism, collective memory, and belonging are interpreted in mass media texts. Before joining ICR as a PhD student, she worked as a researcher with Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, participating in various projects on gender, politics of space, and trolling. She has also held several teaching assistantships and editorial positions.

Ruochong Alice JiRuochong (Alice) Ji received her bachelor’s degree in psychology and economics at the University of Chicago. Her bachelor’s thesis in psychology “Ramifications of social inclusion: Does social inclusion affect people’s adoption and internalization of harm-doing group normative behavior?” examined whether profile likes by group members on social media affected subsequent learning and internalization of aggressive behaviors displayed by other group members. Prior to joining ICR, she also worked as a research assistant at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Her primary research interest is in media psychology. Specifically, she is interested in the reception of health messages and scientific/political communication on social media, the effects of social media in promoting policy and social change, and influencer (real or virtual) marketing. 

Jiwon OhJiwon Oh’s research interests intersect digital culture, technology, and identity. Drawing upon both qualitative and computational methods, she would like to study how gendered and racialized boundaries are created, enforced, and protected within digital spaces, particularly regarding how Asian-American communities navigate pandemic-era identity politics online. Jiwon holds an MA in communication from Seoul National University, where she studied cringe culture, fandoms, and Korean popular culture. She has also conducted research with industry giants like Netflix and HYBE. She graduated magna cum laude from New York University, receiving a BS with honors in media, culture, and communication. 

 

ICR student Nah publishes research in ‘Computers in Human Behavior’

Hye Soo NahHye Soo Nah, a doctoral student at the Institute of Communications Research, has had a paper accepted for publication in Computers in Human Behavior, a scholarly journal dedicated to examining the use of computers from a psychological perspective. 

Nah is the sole author of “The appeal of ‘real’ in parasocial interaction: The effect of self-disclosure on message acceptance via perceived authenticity and liking.” 

The paper addresses how people are influenced by “parasocial” interactions online, such as with YouTubers, TikTokers, Twitch streamers, etc. Nah found that speakers who self-disclosed while speaking (i.e., sharing personal information about themselves) were perceived as more authentic, likable, and therefore more persuasive. 

Abstract: This research demonstrates how a media performer’s self-disclosure in a parasocial interaction increases viewers’ likelihood to agree with the performer’s message. Two randomized experiments supported a serial multiple mediator model where a performer’s self-disclosure positively affected viewers’ message acceptance via increased perceptions of performer authenticity and feelings of interpersonal liking. In Study 1 (n = 415), participants were randomly assigned to watch a short video where the performer, a male college student, either engaged in self-disclosure or did not while presenting a prosocial, mental health-related message. Throughout both versions of the video (self-disclosure, no-disclosure), the performer gazed and spoke directly into the camera and addressed the viewer’s presence, thereby engaging in parasocial interaction. Study 2 (n = 520) was a close conceptual replication of Study 1 and provided additional support for the serial multiple mediator model.

ICR student wins 3rd place in campus Image of Research competition

Kirby Cook

Kirby Cook (MS ’21, advertising), a doctoral student at the Institute of Communications Research in the College of Media, won third place and a $200 award in the annual Image of Research competition, a multidisciplinary event celebrating the diversity and breadth of student research at UIUC. The graduate student edition of the competition is organized by the Scholarly Commons of the University Library and the Graduate College. 

Cook won for her image “The Identity Conflict: Lifelong Journey of a Korean Adoptee.”

“Art and qualitative research come together in this depiction of a lifelong identity journey for Korean adoptees,” Cook wrote in her description. “Beyond the boundaries of prescribed methods, data collection, and formulaic approaches, this collage represents the abstract complexities of research and what lies beyond charts and tables. How does one capture the essence of an individual’s personal history; their pain, their future? While my research focuses primarily on material items belonging to Korean adoptees and their meanings, I recognize that there is more behind their stories.”

View Cook’s full description and the other winning submissions.

Cook image

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