2024 Symposium Participants
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Faculty Mentors
Sarah Upton (PhD, New Mexico) is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Communication at UTEP. Her research interests include invitational social change and communication in border contexts. She is also committed to connecting teaching and research through service learning to give students the opportunity to engage with the larger El Paso/Cd. Juárez community in meaningful ways.
Prof. Upton has earned a PhD in intercultural communication from the University of New Mexico in 2014, a master’s degree in communication, culture, & technology from Georgetown University in 2010, and a bachelor’s degree in electronic media from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2008. Dr. Upton was born and raised in El Paso, and she is excited to be home, teaching in the community that gave her roots and first inspired her to pursue higher education.
Amanda R. Martinez, PhD is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Davidson College in North Carolina. She studies mediaeffects, gender, and intercultural communication with a focus on underrepresentedpopulations, identity, intersectionality, race-based media stereotyping, humorouscommunication in entertainment contexts, health communication, and intergroupcommunication dynamics.
A Chicana feminist from New Mexico and Texas, herLatina/o/x communication studies research agenda angle aims to elevate thecomplexities of Chicana/o/x cultural roots and contemporary experiences by shatteringthe monoliths prevalent across important societal realms of representation, includinghealth, education, and mass media
Yonaira M. Rivera is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Rutgers University’s School of Communication & Information. Dr. Rivera’s scholarship focuses on reducing health inequities and improving the well-being of Latino/a/x/e communities through health communication initiatives. Her work uses qualitatively-driven mixed methods and community-based participatory research in English and Spanish. She specifically studies the implications of health (mis)information engagement onsocial media and the utilization of social media as a tool to communicate withand mobilize communities.
Dr. Rivera is an Associate Member of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey’s Cancer Prevention & Control Program, a Core Faculty Member of the Rutgers Global Health Institute and Affiliated Faculty at theRutgers Center for Latin American Studies. Prior to her doctoral work, Dr. Rivera was previously a community health educator through the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Center for Reducing Cancer Health Disparities and has worked at the local and national levels. Dr. Rivera has a Ph.D. in Social & Behavioral Sciences from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and an MPH in Behavioral Sciences & Health Education from Emory University.
X: @yriveraPhD
Dr. Jennifer Kam is a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and she is a Faculty Affiliate with the Chicana/o Studies Institute and the Migration Initiative at UCSB. Dr. Kam uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how stressors, rooted in structural barriers, are associated with the health and wellbeing of immigrant youth. She focuses on undocumented immigration, interpreting for adult family members under stressful conditions, and racial/ethnic discrimination.
In addition, she conducts research to identify promotive factors at different levels (e.g., individual, interpersonal, community, institutional, cultural, state, and federal) that can promote thriving. Her research has been published in the top communication journals, such as Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, CommunicationMonographs, and Health Communication. She is the former Chair of the Health Communication Division at the National Communication Association, and she received the 2016 Early Career Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division and the 2022 Promoting Equity and Inclusivity Award from the Health Communication Division. She also received a 2023 Presidential Citation from the National Communication Association–which is given to only a small number of communication scholars–for making the discipline more community-and culturally-centered.
Dr. Susana Ramírez is a nationally recognized expert in media, inequality, and health. As an “infodemiologist”—trained in both communication and public health—Dr. Ramírez uses social scientific methods to advance public health goals. Her research aims to advance understanding of how the public information environment contributes to population health through policy agenda-setting, community action, and individual decision-making. A longstanding line of research considers the role of the public information environment on health outcomes and upends traditional behavioral research that (mis)characterizes Latinos, immigrants, and African Americans as having cultural orientations in opposition to healthy lifestyles. Rather, Dr. Ramírez’ findings provide a narrative for how communication may impact health disparities. Recent research extends this theorizing to advance understanding of the corporate and commercial determinants of health, including elaboration of a theoretical framework for racialized marketing.
Prof. Ramírez is co-editor of the Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare (Wiley, 2024) and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Health Communication and the Journal of Communication in Health Care. Her work has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Buoy Health, and the Hellman Family Foundation and has been published in leading interdisciplinary journals including Social Science & Medicine, American Journal of Health Promotion, BMJ-Global Health, and Millbank Quarterly.
She is currently an Associate Professor of Public Health Communication at the University of California, Merced, where she teaches courses in social science research methods, health communication, and health policy. Dr. Ramírez earned a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.P.H. from Harvard University, and a B.A. in Communication from Santa Clara University.
Carlos A. Tarin (Ph.D., University of Utah, 2015) is Associate Professor and Director of Forensics in the Department of Communication at The University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Tarin’s research spans multiple areas of the communication discipline but primarily centers around Latina/o/x communication studies, environmental communication, and organizational communication. His work explores topics such as organizational violence, environmental racism and justice, critical pedagogy, and decolonial organizing. Dr. Tarin’s research appears in journals such as Health Communication, Environmental Communication, and Argumentation and Advocacy, along with numerous edited volumes. His upcoming project (w/ Dr. Stacey Sowards) theorizes joy and ecological futurities
Graduate Student Presenters
Ben Rholdan Sousa Pereira is a PhD student at the School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University (New Brunswick). His research focuses on health communication initiatives for underserved communities in the global south. He is particularly interested in reaching out to those residing in riverside communities within the Brazilian Amazon. He conducts research in English and Brazilian Portuguese.
X: @benrholdan
Gabrielle (Gabby) Garza, M.A. is a doctoral student at the University of Utah in the Communication Department. Gabby does work in and at the intersections of multple social justce frameworks including reproductive, environmental, and disability justice. Her work takes a critical and rhetorical approach to science, technology, and medicine with a focus on the physical, emotional, and environmental health of communities of color. Beyond teaching for the Department of Communicaton, Gabby is also working on several research teams on projects ranging from open science practices to how sex educators relate inferlity informaton in the classroom. She received her B.A. and M.A. in communication studies at Texas State University.
Nancy Carlson, M.A. is a doctoral student of Organizational Communication and Technology in The Communication Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research primarily focuses on risk, crisis, and disaster communication, more specifically, the challenges vulnerable and marginalized Spanish-speaking communities face during natural disasters and the role of cultural communicative practices in preparedness efforts. Nancy has co-authored textbook chapters on disaster rescue and qualitative research, specifically negotiating organizational access. She has also co-authored articles on disaster preparedness barriers and risk information seeking. Nancy is a part of two research groups, Optic Lab and TIPI. She received a B.S. in Psychology and an M.A. in Disaster Studies from the University of Texas RGV.
X: @nanc_carlson
Hannatu Janada Dimas, MD, MPH is a doctoral student at Chapman University, California, pursuing a PhD in health and strategic communication. Her interest revolves around public health risk communication in underserved populations. She is a public health specialist and medical epidemiologist. She holds a Bachelor of Medicine, a Bachelor of Surgery (MB, BS), and a Master’s in Public Health (MPH), which was delivered in collaboration with Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program, tailored after the US Centers for Disease Control Epidemic Intelligence Service.
Dr. Dimas has played a key role in Nigeria's national disaster management and emergency response. Her leadership and active role in these areas as a Civil Defense paramilitary officer have significantly contributed to the field. Over the years, she has participated in, and coordinated several national public health missions, including vaccination campaigns, outbreak investigations, and other epidemiological research. Dr. Dimas's role as a skilled facilitator and mentor to several grassroots public health officials and epidemiology trainees in Nigeria has profoundly impacted the next generation of public health professionals. She is a fellow of the Institute of Disaster Management and Safety Science, the Chartered Institute of Risk Management of Nigeria, and a member of the International Society of Substance Use Professionals. Dr. Dimas's professional position has not deterred her from her commitment to humanitarian activities. She seizes every opportunity to volunteer, demonstrating her unwavering dedicationto public service. Her humanitarian activities range from providing medical care in remote areas to conducting health education workshops in underserved communities.
X: @janakuvu