Research

I am a qualitative scholar with primary research interests at the intersection of gender, race and identity in journalism. I critically examine media representations of women and minorities and the professional experiences of women and minority journalists.


My scholarship has been published in several leading journals including Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism History, American Journalism, The Howard Journal of Communications, and Feminist Media Studies.


My scholarship has received top paper and other awards from the History, Minorities and Communication, Commission on Graduate Education, Commission on the Status of Women, Media Ethics, and Cultural & Critical Studies Divisions of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communcation (AEJMC). 


My dissertation examines how journalists articulate the impacts of their embodied identities and experiences on their work. Through a textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse produced around three important social issues over the last decade -- sexual assault and harassment, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ rights -- I investigate whether journalists believe that their proximity to a subject -- due to a shared identity, lived experience, or personal commitment -- better position them to understand, and report on, the issues at stake. Th dissertation’s objective is to provide important insights into how reporters are challenging traditional journalistic practices and proposing new strategies for ensuring that news coverage is accountable to the people and communities it serves. Based on the promise of this project “to make significant contributions to the literature of gender and media,” I was awarded the Mary Ann Yodelis Smith Award for Feminist Scholarship by the Commission on the Status of Women at the 2022 AEJMC conference.