Faculty Profiles

This story originally appeared in UF News on Feb. 9, 2023. When it comes to advertising, there’s nothing bigger than the Super Bowl. Viewed in more than 130 countries and the most watched television broadcast in the U.S. every year, the big game continues to fetch huge bucks from advertisers…

 By Lenore Devore, B.S. Journalism 1984 University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (CJC) Advertising Professor Cynthia Morton loves engaging with students in her advertising classes, but she’s also passionate about research, one reason she thinks she was asked to join a three-university team to find ways to help…

One study identified inequalities in the size of the venue where major men’s and women’s team sports tournaments have been held. The disparity is most prominent in the Americas and Europe, where men’s events are held in stadiums that can hold 200% more than women’s events.

Journalism Assistant Professor Rachel Grant is Research Director for the Narrative Justice Project, a tactical response to popular media conversations around stereotypes and conversations around racism. We interviewed Dr. Grant on Nov. 3, 2021 about the project and findings from the research so far.

CJC Media Production, Management, and Technology Lecturer Iman Zawahry was interviewed on March 3, 2021 about being a Muslim filmmaker in the U.S., the challenges of affecting social change with comedy, and mentoring aspiring artists. The story also includes an edited transcript of the full video.

CJC alumnus Harrison Hove spent years working as a television meteorologist when he felt compelled to teach, a calling to “give back.” Fortunately for hundreds of CJC student journalists, that yearning led him back to Gainesville.

Building upon her background in corporate communication research, Public Relations Associate Professor Rita Men went into high gear during the pandemic to study effective communications from CEOs as well as chatbots used for social listening.

By Max Chesnes, Journalism Senior When Telecommunication Lecturer Houston Wells isn’t teaching students about video production, he’s probably 6-feet under a Florida spring with a camera in his hands and a snorkel in his mouth. For the past nine months, Wells has worked alongside his wife, Brenda, a video production…

Colleen McEdwards, Ph.D., teaches Visual Storytelling (MMC6396) for CJC’s online master’s programs. The course challenges students to examine the intersection of video and the science of storytelling for social impact. McEdwards considers herself a recovering international journalist with more than 30 years of experience. While at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation…

Yulia Strekalova is CJC’s Director of Grants Development and a recent CJC Ph.D. graduate. And now she can add assistant research professor to her resume. Strekalova was drawn to academia because of her curiosity of how people make sense of health information. Her interest in how people understand health information started with…

Dr. Carla Fisher joined the CJC faculty this fall as an assistant professor in the Advertising Department. She is also an affiliate member of the UF Health Cancer Center and the STEM Translational Communication Center. Fisher conducts research on the centrality of family communication across the life span. Her focus…

Advertising Professor Jon Morris started a career in academia 32 years ago to engage in a long tradition of scientific exploration. Morris, an advertising professional at the time, wanted to study consumers’ emotional responses to advertising campaigns. After over three decades of study, Morris is still thrilled by scientific discovery…