2026 Symposium Participants
Faculty Presenters
Dr. Raisa Fernanda Alvarado (she/her/ella) (Ph.D., University of Denver) is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media at California State University, San Bernardino. Her current research and teaching specializations are rooted in critical gender/girlhood studies with a focus on Latine and Chicana/o/x rhetorical criticism, feminist media studies, and the rhetoric of social movements. Her work has appeared in Women's Studies in Communication, the International Journal of Communication, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, among other publications. In 2025, Dr. Alvarado was awarded the Pedagogy Award from the Feminist and Gender Studies Division and the Activism and Social Justice Pedagogy Award from the Activism & Social Justice Division of the National Communication Association.
Dr. Danielle K. Brown is the 1855 Community and Urban Journalism University Professor at Michigan State University. She is also the founding director of the LIFT Project, a community-engaged research effort that identifies and connects trusted messengers, content creators, and leaders in communities with quality local news and information pipelines. As a consultant for newsrooms nationwide, she translates narrative analysis into tools for advancing journalism and democratic engagement. Her research on the social movements, pro-democratic reporting, and narrative change has appeared in academic and trade publications globally. She has received multiple awards and recognitions for her research and service record as an early-career scholar and her pioneering public engagement work. Prior to joining the academy, she worked in journalism and nonprofit public relations.
Dr. Logan Rae Gomez (they/she) is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Race at the University of Utah. Their research and teaching interests lie in rhetoric, critical/cultural studies, black feminism, and gender and queer studies. Logan’s current work compels them to consider rhetorical questions about erasure, preservation, and possibility. They’ve been published in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Women's Studies in Communication, Rhetoric, Politics & Culture, and First Amendment Studies.
Dr. Joshua Guitar currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Communication at Kean University where he teaches classes in rhetoric, critical media studies, and political communication. Joshua employs classical and critical methods of rhetorical inquiry to examine mediated political discourse, oftentimes to interrogate the rhetorical manifestations of ideology that inhibit democratic discourse, civil liberties, and political equity. Joshua’s research has been featured in journals like Critical Studies in Media Communication and Communication and Democracy. Joshua recently co-edited a collection of studies entitled From a Whisper to a Movement: Investigating the Shared Rhetorical Spaces of Whistleblowing and Social Protest, published by SUNY Press in 2025.
Dr. Raquel Moreira is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Media, & Culture in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. Her broader research agenda is concerned with issues of marginalization within minoritized groups in Latin/e America. Currently, Dr. Moreira is investigating hemispheric constructions of Latinidad, particularly the connections between mestizaje and (anti) Blackness as they intersect with other colonial systems. Her work has appeared in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Race, Women’s Studies in
Communication, Communication, Culture, and Critique, among others. Moreira is also the author of Bitches Unleashed: Performance and Embodied Politics in Favela Funk, which has received the 2021 Bonnie Ritter Feminist Book Award and the NCA's 2022 International and Intercultural Communication Division Best Book Award.
Dr. Arthur D. Soto-Vásquez is an Assistant Professor in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has published a wide range of work on Latino politics, Instagram, influencers, Disney, consumer culture, migration, right wing movements online, misinformation, and podcasts. His first book, Mobilizing the Latinx Vote, was published by Routledge in 2020 and he was a co-editor of Migrant World Making, published by Michigan State University Press in 2023. He is the incoming Vice-Chair of the Popular Media & Culture Division of the International Communication Association beginning in 2026.
Graduate Student Presenters
Eleanor “Ellie” Estrada (Pelayo) is an activist and doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. Ellie's work operates from the interstices of Chicana feminism, critical rhetoric, and urbanism; however, much of her recent work has involved theorizing chismé [gossip] rhetorically and qualitatively. Methodologically, Ellie utilizes rhetorical field methods (RFM), performative writing, and rhetorical analysis to study race and identity. As a transgender Chicana, Ellie maintains that the most important scholarship is that which speaks truth to power; this especially holds true in issues related to Latinidad or Queerness. Indeed, Ellie's activist orientation is never "beyond" her scholarship, but always betwixt and between: she works with organizations like Mecha de U of U and University Neighborhood Partners (UNP). When her head is not buried in a book, Ellie enjoys cooking, making coffee, hanging out with her dog, Blueberry, and watching horror movies with her partner.
Emma is from northern BC, Canada. She received her undergraduate degree from Northern State University and her master's degree from the University of Montana. Her area of study is women's health, specifically on menstrual (including menopausal) rhetoric.
Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Casey spent most of his formative years outside Denver, CO, before moving out to Utah in 2018. He completed his undergraduate studies in communication at the University of Utah. Through his undergraduate studies, he was drawn to the Communication Department for its wealth of knowledge among faculty and students alike. Salt Lake City originally drew him in with its proximity to outdoor adventures. Biking, skiing, and rafting are among his passions outside of academia, though he is always eager to explore new and fun activities!