Leandra H. Hernández Wins the Everett Hughes Holle Award for Social Justice and Community Engagement from the National Communication Association
Dr. Leandra Hernández receiving her award at the 2025 NCA Convention from Dr. Jeanetta Sims
Leandra H. Hernández, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the University of Utah, was awarded the Everett Hughes Holle Award for Social Justice and Community Engagement on Saturday, November 22, 2025, at the National Communication Association 111th Annual Convention in Denver, Colorado.
Dr. Leandra Hernández’s visionary work bridges scholarship, advocacy, and community engagement, from mentoring students to co-founding the Salt Lake Area Queer Climbers. Equally, her leadership and service across multiple NCA divisions and caucuses embody the award’s mission to humanize difference, champion inclusion, and create democratic, equitable outcomes. Through innovative projects and tireless service, she has created pathways of representation and belonging for queer and BIPOC communities. Her contributions exemplify the spirit of this award and the transformative power of communication.
“NCA is proud to recognize Dr. Leandra H. Hernández’s significant contributions to the Communication discipline with this prestigious award,” said NCA Executive Director Justin Danowski.
About the Award
The award recognizes individual communication scholars and professionals whose work centers on community service and applied scholarship that promotes democracy, diversity, and creative expression. The award will recognize community-based work that is directed toward creating democratic and equitable outcomes for the most marginalized, and/or humanizing difference through a hands-on approach that seeks to respond, bridge, and/or confront issues of social injustice and indignity and engage in activism aimed at improving the lives and conditions of others, through education, engagement, or embodiment.
For more information about NCA’s awards program, visit http://www.natcom.org/awards/.
About the National Communication Association
The National Communication Association (NCA) advances Communication scholarship, teaching, and practice to foster a better world. As a discipline, NCA members study all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity within our membership, workplace, and classroom; NCA supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage inclusion, diversity, equity, and access.
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