PAST GRANT RECIPIENTS

To Disclose or Not: Nigerian Girls’ Stories of Sexual Violence 
(Award: $9,832)
Principal Investigator: Comfort Adebayo, Towson University

Mapping Narratives of War in Eastern Europe: Exploring Kosovar Women’s Communicative Organizing for Survival (Award: $10,008)
Principal Investigator: Erjona Gashi, University of South Florida

Harvesting Hope: Native American Undergraduates’ Self-Narrative Documentaries to Enhance Opportunities for College Persistence and Indigenize Communication Theory (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Karla Hunter, Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s)/: Amber Jensen, Rocky Dailey, and Wiyaka His Horse Is Thunder, South Dakota State University,

Discourses of Marginality and Precarity in Informal Sector Organizing (Award: $11,734)
Principal Investigator: Eric Karikari, Towson University; Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): Sandra Wood, Arizona State University

The Color of Family: Schema's Prediction of Perceived Realism Judgements of Transracial Adoption Portrayals (Award: $2,024.40)
Principal Investigator: Chelsea Moss, Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): T. Franklin Waddell, University of Florida

"Stop Cop City!": Communicative Strategies for Organizational Collaboration Within an Ideologically Diverse Social Movement 
(Award: $9,939)
Principal Investigator: Roth Smith, University of Tennessee

Communication and Interracial Solidarity: Toward an Integrated Model of Communication, Coping, and Intra-and Inter-group Collective Action (Award: $8,980)
Principal Investigator: Weiting Tao, University of Miami; Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): Zifei Fay Chen, University of San Francisco; Lan Ni, University of Houston; Dongqing Xu and Xiao Liang, University of Miami

When Neurodiversity Became Institutional DEI: A Communicative Exploration of Neurodiverse Employment (Award: $6,500)
Principal Investigator: Astrid Villamil, University of Missouri; Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): Scott Branton and Joel Lansing Reed, University of Arkansas

Commodification of Religious Iconography as Resistance in Saint Javelin (Award: $6,625)
Principal Investigator: Lara Zwarun, University of Missouri - St. Louis; Additional Investigator(s)/Researcher(s): Richard N. Canevez, Michigan Technical University

Sustainable and Just? Examining Communication Practices Around Sustainable Consumption and Environmental Justice among Lower-Income Consumers (Award: $9,951)
Principal Investigator: Lucy Atkinson
Additional Investigators/Researchers: Na Yu and Joshua Anderson, University of Texas at Austin

Communication Influences on Black Women’s Pregnancy Risk Perceptions and Related Behavioral Responses (Award: $4,300)
Principal Investigator: Marifran Mattson
Additional Investigator/Researcher: Tiwaladeoluwa Adekunle, Purdue University

Locating A Third Option in the Anglophone Cameroon Crisis: A Case for Alternative Collaborative Practices (Award: $8,500.00)
Principal Investigator: Blessed Ngoe, University of Colorado at Boulder

Identity Management Online in Enterprise Social Media Among Black Professionals (Award: $8,223.93)
Principal Investigator: Christine Nyawaga, Wayne State University

Beyond Strawmen: Plastic Pollution, Impure Politics, and Networked Cultures of Care (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Phaedra Pezzullo, University of Colorado at Boulder

Disruption, Resilience, and Change: Lessons of Asian American Nonprofit Organizing During COVID-19 Pandemic (Award $5,450)
Principal Investigator: Evgeniya Pyatovskaya
Additional Investigator/Researcher: Patrice Buzzanell, University of South Florida

Rhetorics of Exile: Proletarian Cartographies of Struggle During the Cold War Era (Award: $9,900)
Principal Investigator: Kate Siegfried, Mercer University

Racial Apology and the Rhetoric of American Psychiatry (Award: $3,151.49)
Principal Investigator: Davi Thornton, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Beyond #StopAsianHate: Building Asian American Studies Programs in the South and the Public Role of Communication Scholarship (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: George Villanueva, Texas A&M University

Promote Social Capital for Ethnic Minority Employees: Examining Individual, Organizational and Technological Factors in the Dynamic Model of Social Identity and Networks (Award: $9,980)
Principal Investigator: Shan Xu, Texas Tech University; Additional
Investigator/Researcher: Wenbo Li, Stony Brook University

Holding Space with Immigrant Women Faculty in Communication to Retreat, Relate, and Reflect: A Coauthored White Paper to Reimagine U.S. Academia (Award: $9,425)
Principal Investigator: Yea-Wen Chen, San Diego State University
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Brandi Lawless, University of San Francisco; Marwa Abdalla, UC San Diego

The Monster in the Museum (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: James L. Cherney, University of Nevada, Reno

We’re Here, We’re Queer, and We’re Stressed: Using the Minority Stress Model to Explore the Impact of Queer Readings on Mental Health Among Sexual Minority Youth (Award: $3,912)
Principal Investigator: Leah Dajches, University of Arizona
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Jennifer Stevens Aubrey, University of Arizona

Black Lives Matter: Perspectives from the Ground (Award: $10,318)
Principal Investigator: Amanda Nell Edgar, University of Memphis
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Andre E. Johnson, University of Memphis; DiArron Morrison, University of Memphis; Curtis Chamblee, University of Memphis

Politics of Tanning in Asia: Neoliberal and Neocolonial Discourse Constructed on Tanned Female Bodies in Korea (Award: $3,385)
Principal Investigator: Seonah Kim, University of Washington

Paths of Acceptance for Parents of Gender Minority Youth: Hastening Acceptance Through Narrative Persuasion (Award: $7,689)
Principal Investigator: Katrina L. Pariera, The George Washington University

Precarious Societies, Collective Solidarity: Feminist Economic Organizing of Mutual Aid Organizations and Resilience Discourses During COVID-19 (Award: $8,574)
Principal Investigator: Brett Robertson, University of South Carolina
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Sean Eddington, Kansas State University; Lauren Berkshire Hearit, Hope College; Timothy Betts, University of South Florida

Identity Gaps and Approach-Oriented Social Media Coping: Mediators Between COVID Racial Discrimination and Stress (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Jiun-Yi Tsai, Northern Arizona University, School of Communication
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Chia-chen Yang, Oklahoma State University

Creating While Purple: Prince, Intellectual Property, and Black Capitalism (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Anjali Vats, University of Pittsburgh

Communicating Queer Chinese Identities: A Qualitative Investigation of the Visibility and Intelligibility of Transnational Queer Women in the United States (Award: $5,341)
Principal Investigator: Terrie Siang-Ting Wong, Penn State Brandywine
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Shuzhen Huang, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

Legitimizing Grief and Addressing Health Inequity: A Culture-Centered, Community Based Campaign for Pregnancy Loss and Stillbirth Awareness (Award: $4,958)
Principal Investigator: Sarah Aghazadeh, University of Maryland

Using Entertainment-Education Programming to Promote Verbal Sexual Consent and Positive Attitudes Toward Women Among Adolescents (Award: $6,500)
Principal Investigator: Cassandra Alexopoulos, University of Massachusetts Boston
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Drew Cingel, University of California Davis

Rethinking (LGBT) Empowerment in the Global South: Exploring the Emancipatory Potential of Critical Dialogue for LGBT Rights NGOs in Ghana (Award: $9,970)
Principal Investigator: Godfried Asante, San Diego State University

Communicating Success in Cultural Terms: A Postcolonial Perspective on NGO Monitoring, Evaluation, and Agency Grant (Award: $8,102)

Principal Investigator: Kellie Brownlee, University of Colorado, Boulder

Is Facebook News Biased Against my Opinion?: Testing the Influence of comments on the Hostile Media Effect & a Solution to the Problem (Award: $9,295)
Principal Investigator: Sherice Gearhart, Texas Tech University
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Ioana Coman, Texas Tech University; Alexander Moe, SUNY Brockport

Witnessing the Impact of COVID-19 in Disabled People’s Lives: A Web Archive and Community Newspaper Series (Award: $9,520)
Principal Investigator: Kelly C. George, Immaculata University

Collective Memory and Visual Communication: The Archival Legacy of the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, Gallup New Mexico (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Allison Griffiths, Baruch College, The City University of New York

Constructing Transgender Suicide in U.S. Public Culture: A Critical Genealogy (Award: $6,631)/
Principal Investigator: Joe Hatfield, University of Arkansas

Speaking for Social Justice Project (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Shawn J. Parry-Giles, University of Maryland
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Skye de Saint Felix, University of Maryland

Storytelling in Online Healthcare Dialogues About COVID-19 (Award: $9,963.17)
Principal Investigator: Robert C. Richards, Jr., University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Laura W. Black, Ohio University; Anna W. Wolfe, Texas A&M University; Chul Hyun Park, University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service; Carson S. Kay, Washburn University; David L. Brinker, Tufts University

Trigenerational Latinx Intimate Health Communication (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Valerie Rubinsky, University of Maine at Augusta
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Angela Cooke-Jackson, California State University Los Angeles; Ashley Aragon, University of Maryland

Effective Strategies to Counter the Spread of Misinformation on WhatsApp: An Experiment in Kenya and Senegal (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Melissa Tully, University of Iowa
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Dani Madrid-Morales, University of Houston

Reproductive Healthcare at the Margins (Award: $8,990)
Principal Investigator: Amy Way, Villanova University

Empower and Protect the Vulnerable Populations during COVID-19 Through Examining Health Risk Information Seeking and Avoidance Behaviors (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Qinghua Yang, Texas Christian University
Additional Investigator(s)/Researchers: Weidan Cao, Ohio State University

Communicating a Youth Culture: Advertising in Postcolonial Bangladesh (Award: $1,000)
Principal Investigator: Md Khorshed Alam, University of South Florida

An Intervention Study on Communication about HIV Risks and Prevention among Groups of Black Women Friends (Award $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Shardé Davis, University of Connecticut

African Americans and End-of-life Care: Assessing Young Adults’ Perceptions of Advance Care Planning and Hospice (Award: $1,680)
Principal Investigator: Patrick Dillon, Kent State University at Stark

The Gun Violence Project: Narratives of Violence in Milwaukee (Award: $10,100)
Principal Investigator: Leslie Harris, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Harnessing Hope: Decolonizing Research on Native American Students’ College Persistence (Award: $9,960)
Principal Investigator: Karla Hunter, South Dakota State University

Effects of Health Misinformation in Polarized Social Media (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Soojong Kim, University of Pennsylvania

The Return (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Hezekiah Lewis, Villanova University

Hiding Under the Sun: Undocumented Immigrants and Communicating/Navigating the U.S. Health System (Award: $1,000)
Principal Investigator: Jamie Robb, University of South Florida

Combat Climate Change: Empowering Generation Z for Climate Change Activism through Viral Videos (Award: $6,750)
Principal Investigators: Michelle Seelig, Weiting Tao, & Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai, University of Miami

Radical Media and Enlightenment in the Malay World (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Rianne Subijanto, Baruch College, The City University of New York

Policing Virtual Worlds: Community-Scripted Scenarios for Police Training (Award: $8,000)

Principal Investigator: Christina Aushana, University of California, San Diego

Asylum Stories: Narrative and Ethics in the Search for Legal Protection (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Sarah Bishop, Baruch College

Milk Delivery: The Queer Newspaper Columns of Harvey Milk (Award: $9,000)
Principal Investigators: Jason Black, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, & Charles Morris, Syracuse University

A Spiral of Advocacy: The Gun Reform Policy Narratives of Social Movement Organizations (Award: $5,000)
Principal Investigator: Melissa Dodd, University of Central Florida

The Technological Imaginaries of Social Movements: The Discursive Dimension of Communication Technology and the Fight for Social Change (Award: $1,000)
Principal Investigator: Elisabetta Ferrari, University of Pennsylvania

Anti-Colonial Aid? Investigating the Decolonizing Potential of Cross-Cultural Dialogue in a Tanzanian NGO (Award: $9,000)
Principal Investigator: Jenna Hanchey, University of Nevada, Reno

Liquid Gold: A Proposal for Qualitative Inquiry into Decision-Making About Breastfeeding Among Indonesian Women (Award: $1,000)
Principal Investigator: Nicole Johnson, Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis

Public Sense-making of Sustainable Water Access in Urban Communities: “Uneasy” Story-telling and Story-making through Collaborative Transmedia Ethnography (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigators: Rahul Mitra, Wayne State University, & Kelly Donnellan

Pacific Communication: Indigenous & Environmental Justice in the Mariana Islands (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Tiara Naputi, University of Colorado Boulder

Promoting Transformative Community Change for Equitable Health: Peer Training and Intervention for Pre-exposure HIV Prophylaxis (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigators: Sachiko Terui, University of Memphis; Joy Goldsmith, University of Memphis; Claude Miller, University of Oklahoma

Transgender Women, Sex Work, and Narratives on HIV and Health (Award: $9,000)
Principal Investigator: Ambar Basu, University of South Florida.

Communicating Food Waste Reduction as Social Justice and Sustainability: A Systemic and Critical Cultural Analysis of Food Recovery and Diversion Efforts in the US and Italy (Award: $9,204)
Principal Investigator: Leda Cooks, University of Massachusetts Amherst

The Influence of Supportive Messages on Health Recovery for LGBQ Victims of Hate Speech: Investigating Interpersonal Communication as a Site for Social Change (Award: $11,527)
Principal Investigators: Amanda Denes, University of Connecticut (PI), & John P. Crowley, University of Washington

Nourishing the Margins: Rhetorics of Food, Race, and the Politics of Place (Award: $4,970)
Principal Investigator: Constance Gordon, University of Colorado Boulder

Negotiating Cultural Change in Africa: A Critical Analysis of Organizational Discourse in Ghana (Award: $2,519)
Principal Investigator: Eric Karikari, University of New Mexico

Social Media and Social Change: A Multilevel Approach (Award: $9,000)
Principal Investigator: Hyunjin Seo, University of Kansas

Navigating Challenges to Humanitarian Efforts: A Case Study of a Volunteer-Based Refugee Resettlement Organization (Award: $5,644)
Principal Investigators: Bobbi Van Gilder, Northeastern University (PI), & Jaqueline S. Bruscella, State University of New York, Oneonta

Decreasing Stigmatization of People with Intellectual Disabilities through Transformative Interactions (Award: $6,200)
Principal Investigator: Kirsten Weber, Central Michigan University

Beyond Fear: Examining the Influence of Hope, Happiness, Sadness and Guilt on Climate Change Communication and Action (Award: $9,658.94)
Principal Investigator: Lucy Atkinson, University of Texas at Austin

Celebrity Disclosures of Mental Illness: The Role of Media Figures in Reducing Mental Illness Stigma (Award: $7,025)
Principal Investigator: Cynthia A. Hoffner, Georgia State University

“Deliberative Imagination”: Visualizing a Common Citizenship in Palestine/Israel (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Norma Musih, Indiana University

I Had My Baby in Brooklyn: Chinese Diasporic Gender Identities and Belonging in Lived Experiences of Transnational Maternity (Award: $3,497.50)
Principal Investigator: Lili Shi, The City University of New York – Kingsborough

Spectacular Nationalism of Contemporary India (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Raka Shome, Visiting Senior Fellow, National University of Singapore

Censorship versus Surveillance: Effective Means of Communication Control (Award: $5,195)
Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Stoycheff, Wayne State University

Beyond Chiraq: A Communication Infrastructure Approach to Local Hip-Hop Culture for Social Change in Chicago (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: George Villanueva, Loyola University Chicago

LGBT Media Advocacy in Vietnam (Award: $9,654)
Principal Investigators: Jason Zingsheim, Governors State University; Dustin Bradley Goltz, DePaul University; Alexandra G. Murphy, DePaul University; Teresa Mastin, Feinberg School of Medicine

The Development and Influence of Heterosexual Television Viewers’ Parasocial Relationships with Gay Characters (Award: $5,000)
Principal Investigator: Bradley J. Bond, University of San Diego

León’s Graffiti Worlds: Citizen Voices in Aerosol, Graffiti as Communication Practice (Award: $5,000)
Principal Investigator: Caitlin Bruce, University of Pittsburgh

“Puerto Rico on the Brink”: Communicating Energy Justice amidst Intersectional Crises (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Kathleen M. de Onís, Indiana University-Bloomington

Finding the Impact Zone: Testing Health News for the Native American Audience (Award: $8,594)
Principal Investigators: Sherice Gearhart (PI) and Teresa Trumbly-Lamsam, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Examining University Students’ Sense-Makings About Diversity, Difference, and Race: A Cross-Regional Study (Award: $3,000)
Principal Investigator: Rona Tamiko Halualani, San Jose State University

Evaluating Participatory Budgeting in Greensboro (Award: $2,800)
Principal Investigator: Spoma Jovanovic, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Art to Heal: JMSS Art as Visual Civic Discourse (Award: $7,500)
Principal Investigator: JongHwa Lee, Hawaii Pacific University

Identifying with a Stereotype: Disentangling the Societal Effects of Latino Television Characters (Award: $5,000)
Principal Investigators: Bryan McLaughlin (PI) and Nathian S. Rodriguez, Texas Tech University

Double Codes: Exploring Revolutionary Indigenous Communication in Bolivia (Award: $9,192)
Principal Investigator: Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA

Innovations in Worker Participation: Communicating for Healthy and Sustainable Food and Work (Award: $7,431)
Principal Investigator: Heather Zoller, University of Cincinnati

Labor of Love: Gender and Creative Work in the Age of Social Media (Award: $6,000)
Principal Investigator: Brooke Erin Duffy, Temple University

Barbara Lee's Peacebuilding Rhetoric: Communication Leadership in the Social Justice Tradition of African American Congresswomen (Award: $5,810)
Principal Investigator: Ellen W. Gorsevski (PI) & Zhao Ding, Bowling Green State University

Breaking the Silence: Empowering Communities to Take a Stand against Prejudice and Discrimination (Award: $5,126)
Principal Investigator: Lisa K. Hanasono, Bowling Green State University

Civil Interactivity: Discouraging Hostility in User Comments on News Websites (Award: $5,821)
Principal Investigator: Thomas B. Ksiazek, Villanova University

In the Shadow of “King Coal”: Violence, Migration, and Mediation in the Anthracite Region (Award: $8,184)
Principal Investigator: Melissa R. Meade, Temple University

Transnational Masculinity in Globalizing India (Award: $9,970)
Principal Investigator: Suman Mishra, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

The Best Response is No Response? Exploring Community Responses to Hate Speech (Award: $5,000)
Principal Investigator: Billie Murray, Villanova University

Performing Gender-Based Resistance in Eastern Germany (Award: $4,860)
Principal Investigator: Desireé D. Rowe, University of South Carolina Upstate

Social Media in Social Movement: A Comparative Study of Twitter Usage During the Arab Spring Egypt Protest and Occupy Wall Street Protest (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigator: Zuoming Wang, University of North Texas

“It’s Just What We Saw in the Movie”: An Oral History of Refugees as Audiences of Relocation (Award: $3,890)
Principal Investigator: Sarah C. Bishop, Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh

Imaging New Alternatives: Risky Social Change and Wild New Public Spheres in China (Award: $10,000)
Principal Investigators: Kevin Michael DeLuca, Ph.D., Department of Communication, University of Utah; Elizabeth Ann Brunner, Department of Communication, University of Utah; Wu Fei, Executive Vice President, College of International Culture Media, Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China)

Identity, Culture, and Articulation: A Critical-Cultural Analysis of Strategic LGBT Advocacy Outreach (Award: $6,500)
Principal Investigator: Erica L. Ciszek, School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon

Sentinels by the Sea: Keeping the Lights Through Performances of Public Memory and Care (Award: $5,550)
Principal Investigator: Shauna M. MacDonald, Ph.D., Department of Communication, Villanova University

Silicon Prairies: Digital Infrastructure and the Search for the Next Great Community (Award: $3,800)
Principal Investigator: Robert Mejia, Department of Communication, State University of New York, Brockport

White Femininity and National Identity: Revisiting the Diana Phenomenon (Award: $5,000)
Principal Investigator: Raka Shome

The Impact of Moral Emotions on Generating Help for Children in Need: Persuasion and Intercultural Communication (Award: $6000)
Principal Investigator: Jie Xu, Department of Communication, Villanova University

Social Change 2.0: Social Media and the Immigration Reform Movement (Award: $5,750)
Principal Investigator: Jillian M. Báez, Department of Media Culture
College of Staten Island-City University of New York

Creating School Environments that Communicate Support for Children from Lesbian/Gay-Parented Families (Award: $10,030)
Principal Investigator: Diana Breshears, Interpersonal/Family Communication Post-doctoral Fellow Department of Educational Psychology University of Pretoria, South Africa

The Dilemmas and Opportunities of U.S.-Chinese-Tibetan Communication in an Age of Globalization (Award: $9,090)
Principal Investigator: Stephen John Hartnett, Department of Communication, University of Colorado Denver. Co-PIs: Lisa Keränen, Department of Communication, University of Colorado Denver; Patrick Shaou-Whea Dodge, Department of Communication, International College of Beijing.

Community as Metaphor: Dialectical Tensions of a Racially Diverse Organization (Award: $2,540)
Principal Investigator: J. Jacob Jenkins
Department of Communication,
 University of South Florida

The Discourse of Participatory Budgeting Organizing Efforts in Greensboro, North Carolina (Award: $4,493)
Principal Investigator:  Spoma Jovanovic, Department of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

“Theater is...just...Theater is just It: Creation Fire” An Ethnographic Exploration of Culture and Identity in Postcolonial Jamaican Performance (Award: $3,000)
Principal Investigators: Maurice Hall, and Heidi M. Rose, Department of Communication, Villanova University

CMM and Cosmopolitan Social Worlds: An Applied Study of Future Communication Scenarios
Principal Investigator: Stephen W. Littlejohn, Member of the Board and Associate, CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution

Culture, Performance and the Transcendent Body: The Libratory Poetics of Post Colonial Identity Negotiation in Jamaica
Principal Investigators: Maurice Hall, Villanova University; Heidi Rose, Villanova University

The Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society
Villanova University, Garey Hall
800 E. Lancaster Ave, Villanova, PA 19085-1699, USA

Thomas Ksiazek, PhD, director
thomas.ksiazek@villanova.edu

Wendy Eisenberg, administrative and program specialist
wendy.eisenberg@villanova.edu