 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
New arrivals in Communication Department The Department of Communication welcomes new students, faculty and staff for 2008-2009. They shared some little-known facts about themselves and who they would want to meet if given the chance. LeiLani Nishime joins the Communication Department faculty from Sonoma State University north of San Francisco where she was an Associate Professor in Ethnic Studies. She found herself doing a lot of work in the field of communications at Sonoma and is looking forward to being part of the UW research community. She plans to research visual representations of mixed-race Asian Americans and their portrayal in science fiction. She is teaching the Asian American Media class autumn quarter. Nishime has two children, ages 6 and 3, and is happy to be part of the Asian-American community in Seattle. If she had the chance, she would want to meet Andrew Bird because she loves his music. More information is available at Nishime's profile page. Florangela Davila will be teaching a class this fall called Journalism and the D-word: Diversity, which aims to strengthen a student's reporting and writing skills by getting them out of their comfort zones and into places/environments that are uncomfortable and/or unusual. In winter and in spring she’ll be teaching a multimedia course. Davila has been a journalist for 15 years, mostly at The Seattle Times, where she wrote both news and features stories. Now she’s reinventing herself by delving into multimedia and public radio. Over the summer she worked at KPLU-FM and hopes to keep freelancing stories for the station. About her name Davila wrote: “My first name on my birth certificate is actually two names: Flor and Angela. But in kindergarten the principal looked at both names and assumed it was a misspelling. So she combined it into one and my mother, being an immigrant and not one to challenge authority (at that time) didn't argue. So I write my name as Florangela, which it turns out is actually how my grandmother (my namesake) signed her name. So all is well.” If she could meet anyone it would be her grandmother, Flor Angela Currea Arias, who died before she was born. And journalist Christiane Amanpour. “Two very strong women who I've always admired,” Davila says.
DeRosier is excited to be working at the UW because of the people. She works closely with faculty to coordinate the Graduate Program. This includes: answering admissions questions and accepting applications from prospective students, teaming with faculty to make and communicate TA and RA assignments, and monitoring student progress and files to ensure graduate students are on track as they progress through the Ph.D. and master's programs. She is also a resource for graduate students needing assistance navigating their programs and figuring out how to meet department and university requirements. DeRosier has been shooting photography for more than 20 years and recently started showing her work at cafes and coffee shops around Seattle. She would like to meet Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle In TIme, The Wind In the Door and other books.
Not many people know that Berdnikovs is a Latvian of Russian origin. He belongs to the community of Old Believers that is an established ethnic and religious minority in Latvia. After reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church initiated by patriarch Nikon and approved in 1666, those who refused to accept new practices were killed, exiled or forced to flee Russia. They became known as the Old Believers and many of them fled to Latvia. As a result, Berdnikovs' ancestors have been living in Latvia for at least 300 years. Berdnikovs has taken a keen interest in modern music and played bass guitar in a number of Latvian underground bands from 1988 to 1996. He is especially interested in funk, Afrobeat, fusion and experimental music. Geoff Craig, a visiting scholar, is an Australian, born and raised in Sydney, who is now enjoying living in the beautiful country of New Zealand. He and his partner, Wendy, have two children: Maddy, who is 18 and studying contemporary music, and Gabriel, who is 8 and deciding whether he will play cricket for New Zealand or Australia when he gets older. Craig says to cope with the stresses of contemporary existence he likes to ride his bike, grow vegetables and play very social volleyball very badly. Before becoming an academic he worked as a journalist for Reuters in Sydney. He has a background in communication, media and cultural studies. His current areas of research are media interviews and environmental communication. Craig is looking forward to his period of RSL (Research and Study Leave), and in particular visiting the UW Communication Department, to have some uninterrupted time to do research and be able to spend time with colleagues whose work has been influential in his own research. Most people don't know that Craig suffers from acrophobia (fear of heights). If he could meet anyone it would be Jon Stewart. Incoming graduate students The department is pleased to welcome incoming graduate students. To learn more about them click on their names below:
|
Katy DeRosier received her bachelor's degree (many years ago!) in Speech Communication from the University of Washington and is excited to return to the department as Graduate Program Assistant. Most recently she was Community Relations Manager at the Northwest Education Loan Association, where she created one-to-one college coaching programs for low-income, first-generation and minority high school students. She also oversaw the "I'm Going to College" program, which inspired fifth- and sixth-grade students from underserved backgrounds to think about college by having them visit a college campus for a day. Prior to this she was a Career Advisor at the Art Institute of Seattle where she assisted graduates from Industrial Design and Interior Design with getting their first jobs in their fields.
Julie Homchick is lead TA this year. She moved with her family from Ithaca, NY to Wenatchee, WA when she was 5 years old, which is where she grew up. She received her B.A. from the University of Washington in English and History and attended Arizona State University and the University of Pennsylvania for her M.A. She’s happy to have come back to the UW for her Ph.D. Homchick is excited (and nervous) about going on the job market this fall and finishing her degree in June. A little-known fact about Homchick is that when she eats candy, she organizes the pieces by color. If she could meet anyone it would be Stephen Colbert.
Andrejs Berdnikovs is a visiting scholar from Latvia, a small country in Northern Europe and a member state of the European Union. He is a researcher at the Institute of Economics, Latvian Academy of Sciences and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Latvia. His main academic interests are in social movements, social impact of information and communications technologies, diaspora studies, and political ideologies. At the UW he intends to research “The Mobilization of Protest Movements: The Role of New Information and Communications Technologies.”