News and Announcements

It’s National Cat Day, and around here, that means one thing: an excuse to celebrate our department’s most purr-suasive personalities (and their humans, too).

The University of Utah’s John R. Park Debate Society is entering an especially exciting chapter—one that honors its storied history while creating new opportunities for students, faculty, and the community to participate in civic debate. With new leadership, a return to the tradition of policy debate, and novel initiatives, the 25-26 academic year promises to be a landmark moment for Utah forensics.

In an opinion piece for The Conversation, Associate Professor Jacob Nelson offers a deeper look at what leadership changes might mean for CBS News and, perhaps more importantly, what they might not mean for the network’s audience.

While science enjoys higher levels of public trust than many other institutions, many Americans still question whether scientists share their values—including religious ones. A newly published study by Department of Communication professors Dr. Isabelle Freiling and Dr. Meaghan McKasy, together with University of Georgia colleague Dr. Michael Cacciatore, explores how perceptions of conflict and harmony between religion and science shape public confidence in science.

Jeremy J. Chatelain, who earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Communication in 2018, died on Sept. 15 in Denver. He was 51.

The University of Utah has awarded Assistant Professor Haoning Xue a 1U4U Collaborative Seed Grant for her project, “Tailoring Conversational AI’s Communication Styles to Promote Colonoscopy Among At-Risk Women: A Patient-Centered Communication Strategy.”

An internship can be the moment everything clicks. For some communication students, it’s the “in” that leads directly to their first full-time job. For others, it’s a safe space to explore, try out a new field, and discover what does and doesn’t fit before graduation. Behind the scenes, U Career Success team helps students navigate these opportunities and make the most of them

The Department of Communication is excited to announce eight new students joining the University of Utah Communication Department at the Asia Campus to pursue their Master's Degrees. Please extend them a warm welcome!

Associate Professor Leandra Hernández is celebrating the forthcoming release of a co-edited volume that promises to reshape how we think about mentorship in higher education.

The Department of Communication is celebrating the outstanding achievements of Assistant Professor Haoning Xue, whose research at the intersection of health communication and media technology has earned international recognition.

Adjunct Associate Professor Amanda Dickson Wilhelm brings her wealth of media experience and enthusiasm for communication into the classroom. Best known to Utah audiences as Amanda Dickson, she co-hosts Utah’s Morning News on KSL NewsRadio and hosts the award-winning program A Woman’s View. Beyond the airwaves, she is a published author, speaker, and dedicated community leader serving on several nonprofit boards, including the National Kidney Foundation of Utah and Hale Centre Theatre’s National Advisory Board.

Reporters and leaders from the award-winning Salt Lake Tribune will share their expertise with the emerging journalists, storytellers, and communication professionals at the U throughout September as part of COMM 4555: Intermediate Journalism. Learn how newsrooms operate, and how journalists cover topics such as education, politics, sports, religion, and more.

An article coauthored by Associate Professor Ben Lyons has been named runner-up for the International Communication Association (ICA) Political Communication Division’s 2025 Kaid-Sanders Best Article of the Year Award. Lyons was recognized for his coauthored article, “Megastudy testing 25 treatments to reduce antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity,” published in Science.

The Department of Communication is pleased to announce the addition of three outstanding faculty members for the 2025–26 academic year. These new hires bring a wealth of experience, innovative research, and a strong commitment to student success. Their expertise will further strengthen our teaching and scholarship across key areas in the field, and we look forward to the energy and ideas they will contribute to our academic community.

Three faculty members in the University of Utah’s Department of Communication have been awarded Taft-Nicholson Faculty Fellowships for 2025. These competitive fellowships provide faculty across disciplines with one to three weeks of dedicated writing time in the scenic Centennial Valley of Montana, home to the Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center.

The Department of Communication is excited to announce six new students joining the University of Utah Communication Department to pursue their Master's Degrees or PhDs. Please extend them a warm welcome!

The College of Humanities in partnership with the Department of Communication has launched a new Journalism website to serve as a dedicated platform highlighting student-produced journalism across a variety of classes, topics and formats.

Can a joke undermine trustworthiness? New research from University of Utah communication scholars Professor Sara Yeo and Assistant Professor Isabelle Freiling, made possible through a collaboration with Hello SciCom, examines how different styles of satire can shape public trust in science communicators.

The Department of Communication is proud to announce that Ellie Estrada, a doctoral candidate in our graduate program, has been selected for the 2025–2026 Graduate Student Fellows Program (GSFP) of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE). Ellie is the first graduate student from our department to earn this fellowship since the program’s inception in 1997 and joins 12 other graduate students in the 25-26 GSFP cohort.

The Department of Communication and the College of Humanities are proud to announce the upcoming release of Davao Smiles, a student-made documentary chronicling a humanitarian dental project in the Philippines spearheaded by Emeritus Professor Paul S. Rose.