The Department of Communication is pleased to announce the 2017 Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Fellowship was awarded to Deborah Danuser, Alvin Primack, and Robin Zwier.

The Department of Communication is please to announce the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Fellowship was awarded to Deborah Danuser, Alvin Primack, and Robin Zwier. Each of them have their own projects that was proposed for the award and the projects listed individually below express a summary of what their plans will be for the summer research fellowship that will have a final project of a presentation at one of our Departmental Agora Speaker Series. Please prepare to attend the Agora to hear how the projects developed in the future.

Deborah J. Danuser is a graduate student in the Dept. of Communication whose research explores media and cultural representations of science and scientists, especially depictions of women and minorities in the sciences. As one of the 2017 A&S Summer Research Fellowship recipients, Deborah will spend the summer recording the oral histories of several corporate television commercials designed to encourage girls to go into (or stay in) the science fields. Before starting the doctoral program at the University of Pittsburgh, Deborah worked as a public relations professional in the academic, non-profit and business sectors for more than 15 years.

Alvin J. Primack is a PhD student who researches the intersection of rhetoric, media, and youth law. Their primary line of research focuses primarily on problematic forms of communication online, such as cyberbullying and youth sexting. Alvin is currently exploring the ways administrators interpret school policies on student misuse of digital communication technologies.

Robin Kanak Zwier’s current research interests lie at the intersection of rhetoric, health, and gender. Her summer research focuses on patient agency and subjectivity, investigating the ways in which pregnant women and their partners develop and negotiate a set of meanings around their role as patients. The fellowship will allow her to collect narratives about pregnancy and birth in collaboration with the PaTH Network’s MyPaTH Story Booth project and access oral histories housed in the Library of Congress’s Archive of Folk Culture. 

Keep a look out for the Agora announcements at the beginning of every term on our website.