Tom Dunn was named the 2017 New Investigator Awardee at NCA's Annual Convention

Tom Dunn (Ph.D. '11), an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Colorado State University, has been named as one of the 2017 winners of the New Investigator Award from the Critical/Cultural Studies Division of the National Communication Association. The award recognizes an emerging scholar in the area of critical/cultural studies communication whose scholarship has set out new directions for the field, who has served as a mentor to others, and who has made meaningful contributions to the Critical/Cultural Studies Division. It is awarded to a junior scholar based upon their work and service prior to earning tenure and promotion. In Dunn's case, his scholarship focuses on the ways lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), and queer people and communities turn to their collective pasts to advocate for social, political, and cultural change in the present. Dunn has explored these questions in numerous journal articles, conference presentations, and his first book Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past (University of South Carolina Press, 2016). In nominating Dunn for the award, one of his letter writers described his scholarship as a "prototype for what is possible when a scholar is thoughtful, thorough, and careful in research; inviting and engaging in imagining a readership; and committed to persuasive excellence—as analyst and discourse producer alike." The award will be given at the NCA annual convention in Dallas in November.