The ERLA allows mid-career researchers to refine their goals, make connections, and develop skills to strategically lead collaborative, multi-investigator research teams, and pursue center-level or large-scale, collaborative research funding.
Su, who was one of 15 Illinois researchers chosen for this year’s cohort, engages in a range of interdisciplinary and collaborative research projects on science and health issues.
Her key research areas include studies on social norms, humor, incivility, social media, engagement metrics, virtual assistants, big data, machine learning, brand communication, science communication, health communication, and environmental communication.
ERLA candidates are nominated by a dean, department head, or director, and evaluated by a campuswide selection committee. Factors such as their commitment to the program, future leadership potential, and how their participation will benefit their career as well as that of the Illinois research enterprise, are all considered before the final selection is made.
Throughout the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters, ERLA members will engage in reflection and personal assessment, clarify their vision and goals, and develop five-year action plans that they will present at the ERLA graduation in April 2026.
Annie Crawley (BS ’90, journalism) was one of two recipients to win the University of Illinois Alumni Association’s 2025 Illini Comeback Award.
Crawley, a.k.a. “Ocean Annie,” is a pioneering underwater filmmaker, environmental photojournalist, author, and ocean advocate whose career spans more than three decades.
She has become a driving force for ocean literacy, exploration and conservation through immersive storytelling and education. She founded “Dive Into Your Imagination”—a series of award-winning illustrated books and award-winning DVDs that have reached global audiences, inspiring millions to care for and become a voice for oceans.
Crawley’s recent work includes ocean-themed visual compositions for symphonies with renowned composer Stella Sung—merging science, music, and art to spotlight noise, chemical, and sound pollution. Her latest documentary, The Island of the Shark: Guardians of Malpelo, highlights shark conservation and the fight against illegal fishing in Colombia.
As a columnist for Scuba Diving Magazine and an in-demand speaker, Crawley challenges us to dive deeper—to hear the ocean’s story and recognize the role we all play in the ocean’s future.
Since 1980, when the Illini Comeback Award was established, the UIAA has invited prominent and accomplished alumni back to the campus to participate in various activities during Homecoming Weekend.
Honorees are provided opportunities to interact with current students and share information about their professional experiences and the value of their University of Illinois education.
UIAA Alumni Awards will be presented in conjunction with Homecoming Week, September 21-27.
Border walls and tariffs must be high against Mexico, but the Cokes it exports to the United States get a pass. A product beloved by immigrants and cool kids alike, it is known for its real cane sugar and retro glass bottle. And it’s a product that, in its very sweetness, shows that taste is political—that what we consume is shaped by trade policies, subsidies, and the strength of our regulatory institutions.
Amanda Ciafone, Associate Professor of Media and Cinema Studies
Amanda Ciafone, associate professor of media and cinema studies, discusses the strange contradictions in American health policy in a Boston Globe op-ed piece titled “A delicious irony: Why Trump prefers Mexican Coca-Cola.”
“When President Trump recently professed his preference for ‘REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States,’ he may have been remembering the Cokes of his youth. More likely he was thinking of the taste of a ‘Mexican Coke,’ the only version of Coca-Cola sweetened with real sugar, rather than high-fructose corn syrup, that is commercially available in the United States—and it’s imported from Mexico,” Ciafone writes. “It was hard not to marvel at the irony.”
This will result in the creation of a new hybrid/flexible, state-of-the-art classroom (see architectural rendering above), which will open in Spring 2026, and a renovated main corridor, plus updated flooring throughout, including in faculty offices.
See photos depicting the original spaces, the renovation process, and the architectural renderings.
Gregory Hall Lower-Level Corridor
Before Renovations
Substantial work in the lower level of Gregory Hall has not occurred since the 1990s. See photos of the original corridor and a faculty office.
Gregory Hall lower level corridor before renovations
Gregory Hall lower level corridor before renovations
Gregory Hall lower level faculty office before renovations
Renovation Progress
Renovations included painted walls throughout the entire hallway, including the east and west wings, new lighting, and new flooring, including in faculty offices.
Painting primer in the hallways
Painting in the hallways
Lights installed and floor removed
Floor removal process
Floor mitigated, walls painted, lights in, and portals built
Crown molding detail
New floor installed in hallway
New carpet installed in faculty office
Ceiling tiles installed
First day of Fall 2025 classes
Architectural Rendering
The corridor renovations will be complete by the start of Fall 2025. By Spring 2026, new digital signage will be installed in place of bulletin boards that previously lined the walls.
Gregory Hall Room 1
Before Renovations
Rooms 1, 2, and 3 on the east wing were two smaller classrooms and a faculty office.
Gregory Hall Rooms 1, 2, and 3 before renovation
Gregory Hall Room 1 before renovation
Gregory Hall Room 2 faculty office moving out before renovation
Gregory Hall Room 3 before renovation
Renovation Progress
Renovations included knocking down walls to combine Rooms 1, 2, and 3 into a new hybrid/flexible, state-of-the-art classroom.
Gregory Hall Room 1 after demo
Gregory Hall Room 2 after demo
Gregory Hall Room 3 after demo
Gregory Hall Rooms 1, 2, 3 after demo, from hallway
Gregory Hall Rooms 1, 2, 3 after demo
Gregory Hall Rooms 1, 2, 3 after demo, from northwest corner
Gregory Hall Rooms 1, 2, 3, looking south, with the last wall knocked down
Architectural Renderings
By Spring 2026, Room 1 will offer classes by all three departments in the College of Media, supporting activities such as advertising brand consultations, journalism press conferences, and media and cinema studies production, and will enable hybrid teaching and conferencing.
—Photos by Meghan Burnett and Holly Rushakoff. Architectural renderings by Reifsteck Wakefield Fanning.
Four students in the Spring 2025 ADV 409: Media Entrepreneurship course won 2025 American Digital Design Awards presented by Graphic Design USA magazine.
Alessandra Lopez, Macy Miller, Ben Riseman, and Emmanuel Tinajero, all 2025 graduates in advertising, were seniors at the time of the class.
The students created a comprehensive pitch deck for a new mobile app they conceptualized called Bad St!tch, which lets users share the ways they upcycle their clothes. If another user likes an upcycling idea but doesn’t want to or is unable to do it, they can hire the person who published the idea to do it for them, giving designers a way to showcase their work and potentially acquire customers.
Terry Kasdan, adjunct lecturer in advertising who teaches ADV 409, said the team won the award in the student work category for Bad St!tch’s brand identity and user interface, which they developed in class.
“As much as I still love my ‘day job’ as a digital marketer and agency owner, I have to admit, the hours I spend in class with the amazing students I’m so privileged to teach in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising and Technology Entrepreneur Center are truly my favorite parts of the week. Nothing beats seeing them transform ideas into real ventures and gain recognition for their creativity and hard work,” said Kasdan.
Their work was published in GDUSA’s 25th annual Digital Design Awards Showcase, alongside entries by Bank of America, Dell, and Marriott International, Inc. Kasdan said more than 13,000 entries across all categories were submitted this year and just 100 winners were chosen.
The award-winning segment featured an interview conducted by Emilio Reyes (BS ’25, journalism) with Salvatore Callesano, assistant professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and highlights the importance and impact of linguistics in Spanish-speaking families.
Reyes also co-produced the piece with Jackie Barba (BS ’25, journalism.) Both Reyes and Barba were seniors at the time of production.
The Ñ Awards honor excellence in categories ranging from investigative journalism and television and video to education reporting and student journalism.
Sean Evans (BS ’08, journalism) was featured in the inaugural TIME100 Creators list: The Most Influential Digital Voices of 2025.
Evans is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated Hot Ones, the YouTube series launched in 2015 in which celebrities are interviewed while eating progressively spicy chicken wings.
The show, which is most known for Evans’s deep research on his guests and thought-provoking questions, has run for 27 seasons so far and includes interviews with a slew of famous celebrities such as Gordon Ramsay, Billie Eilish, Sydney Sweeney, and Key & Peele.
The 2025 TIME100 Creators recognizes those individuals who are shaping the future and changing the way people inform themselves.
I suspect AI will continue to be used to help political strategists in creating, testing and managing campaigns. This means we’ll probably receive even more personalized ads—I’m hopeful that we, as citizens, are able to know what is AI and what is not, and what is truthful and what is not, so we can make more informed decisions in the voting booth.
Michelle Nelson, Professor and Head of the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising
Ready or not, here it comes—artificial intelligence is everywhere and it’s only going to become more prevalent in the years to come, say those in the know. Michelle Nelson, professor and head of the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, was one of several University of Illinois faculty who shared future predictions of AI in their area of expertise in this News-Gazette article. Nelson, who offered insights about AI and political advertising, said while artificial intelligence is used in many ways across the advertising industry, humans are still needed in the field.
Faculty, graduate students, and recent alumni from the College of Media co-presented various topics of research at the 75th annual International Communication Association Conference—the largest academic conference for communication scholars—on June 12-16, 2025, in Denver, Colorado. The ICA aims to advance the scholarly study of human communication by encouraging and facilitating excellence in academic research worldwide.
This year’s conference theme addressed “Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research.” College of Media presenters included faculty in the Institute of Communications Research and the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising; graduate students in the MS advertising program; and doctoral students in the Institute of Communications Research PhD program.
College of Media research presenters and presentations are listed below in bold. (Please see the ICA conference program for complete listings.)
Angharad Valdivia and Supathida Kulpavaropas
Intersectional Experiences of Oppression and Resistance
Chair: Angharad Valdivia, Professor Emerita, Institute of Communications Research
Making Sense of AI Across the Media Industries: Disrupting Communication Research by Bridging Divides
“Enterprise AI: Hidden Ironies for Creators, Marketers, and Media Scholars”
Mike Yao, Professor of Digital Media, Advertising; Director of the Institute of Communications Research
Playing for a Better Life: Serious Games and Gamification
“The Power of Play: The Effectiveness of Serious Game on Depression Stigma”
Nansong Zhou, ICR student
Donghan Fu, Wuhan U, China
Zikun Liu, Wuhan U, China
Feminist Disruptions: Institutionalizing Gender in Communication Studies
“Intersectional FSD, a Utopia Yet to Be Achieved”
Angharad Valdivia, Professor Emerita, Institute of Communications Research
Alice Ji
Media Literacy and Information Environments
“The Effect of Message Fatigue on Visual Attention to, and Elaboration of Mental Health Infographics”
Alice Ji, ICR student
Veranika Paltaratskaya, ICR student
Kevin Wise, Professor of Advertising
Conversations With the Machine (Priming, Tensions, Failure, Impact)
“Competitors or Complements? Examining the Effect of Human-AI Interaction on Human-Human Interaction”
Maggie Zhang, ICR student
Sakshi Bhalla, ICR student
Yanbo Li
Algorithmic Bias and Transparency
Chair: Yanbo Li, ICR student
“Recommendation Transitions on YouTube”
Yanbo Li, ICR student
Sakshi Bhalla, ICR student
Harsh Taneja, Associate Professor of New and Emerging Media, Advertising
Organizers
Kevin Wise (center) with Chen (Crystal) Chen at left, PhD ’23, ICR; and Yanfang Wu at right, Wise’s former student while at Missouri
Consolidating Communication Research Through Causal Inference
Shuning Lu, U of Maryland
Ewa Maslowska, Associate Professor of Advertising
Harsh Taneja, Associate Professor of New and Emerging Media, Advertising
Nathan Walter, Northwestern U
Information Processing and Health Outcomes
“Debunking COVID-19 Falsehoods: A Test of Three Cognitive Predispositions as Buffers for Partisan Influences”
Wei Wang, U of Wisconsin–Madison
Yihan Danny Jia, Boston U
Maria Grabe, Boston U
Kevin Mudavadi, Indiana U Bloomington
Gillian Paxton, ICR student
Jennifer Hwang, U of California, Los Angeles
Jimmy Ochieng, Indiana U Bloomington
MIAO-nipulating Trust: AI Dialogue, Verification, and Cross-Platform Misinformation
“Comparing Conversational Agents’ and Social Media Posts’ Roles in Correcting Health Misinformation”
Ziyang Gong, iSchool
Junqi Shao, iSchool
Nisa Rahman, ICR student
Leona Yi-Fan Su, Associate Professor of Advertising
Personalization and Privacy
“Shh… Is Algorithm Listening?” How Folk Beliefs and Knowledge Shape Our Coping Mechanisms Against Targeted Ads”
Jiyeon Chang, ICR student
Se Il Park, ICR student
Yujin Lee, ICR student
Language and Social Interaction Research Escalator Session
“The Market of Marriage: Matchmaking and the Reinforcement of Gender and Class Boundaries in China”
Anqi Peng, ICR student
Making Sense of the Machine and the Communication with it
Mike Yao, Harsh Taneja, and ICR students
“The Minds Behind the Prompts: How Mental Models Shape User Interaction with Generative AI”
Weizi Liu (MS ’19, advertising; PhD ’24, iSchool)
Mike Yao, Professor of Digital Media, Advertising; Director of the Institute of Communications Research
“From ‘Ghostly Companions’ to ‘Invisible Mechanisms’: Exploring Lay Representations and Performance Expectations of AI Across Task Contexts”
Jiyeon Chang, ICR student
Mike Yao, Professor of Digital Media, Advertising; Director of the Institute of Communications Research
Weizi Liu (MS ’19, advertising; PhD ’24, iSchool)
Popular Media and Culture Research Escalator Session
“Reclaiming Dignity or Reinforcing Misogyny? A Study of Sigma Male Meme Localization in China”
Weiting Du, ICR student
Anna Liu
Promising Student Papers
“Online Ratings in the Social Context: Exploring Consumers’ Critical Data Literacy and Sense-Making of Numeric Information”
Anna Liu, ICR student
Communicating with the Machine: Dynamics and Sophistication
“Testing the Machine-Likeness Hypothesis: How Humans Communicate Like Intelligent Agents”
Hai Liang, Chinese U of Hong Kong, HONG KONG
Longhan Wei, Chinese U of Hong Kong, HONG KONG
Maggie Zhang, ICR student
Jiyuan Qi, Chinese U of Hong Kong, HONG KONG
Anfan Chen, Hong Kong Baptist U, HONG KONG
GATO-lyzing Minds: Digital Advocacy, Social Cues, and Online Persuasion Tactics
“When Humans Anthropomorphize Non-Humans: The Influence of Language Cues and Human Motivation on Anthropomorphism and Persuasion”
WooJin Kim, U of Colorado Boulder
Chang-Dae Ham, Professor of Advertising and Associate Head of Graduate Studies
Supathida Kulpavaropas
Advertising and Consumer Behavior
“Does the Phrase ‘Limited Edition’ Embedded in Ad Matter? The Influence of an Advertising Attribute on Consumer’s Choices and Variety-Seeking Behavior”
Supathida Kulpavaropas (PhD ’17, ICR)
Sela Sar, Professor of Advertising
Xiaowei Zhang (MS ’23, advertising)
Qing Ang (MS ’24, advertising)
Virtual Social Processes
Chair: Sela Sar, Professor of Advertising
“What Makes Fake News More Viral? Emotions as Catalyst for Fake News Virality”
Sela Sar, Professor of Advertising
George Anghelcev, Northwestern U
Qing Ang (MS ’24, advertising)
Xiaowei Zhang (MS ’23, advertising)
Critical (Race) Disruptions and Transformations in Dominant Communication Paradigms
“The Tensions Between Internationalizing and Intersectionalities in the ICA”
Angharad Valdivia, Professor Emerita, Institute of Communications Research
