Three Communication Faculty Awarded Taft-Nicholson Fellowships

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 (TNEHEC). Fellows receive financial support from the Vice President for Research and stay in rustic cabins at University Village, designed to foster focus, reflection, and creative productivity.

The program ran from July 1-25, 2025, and offered scholars an opportunity to advance research and creative projects in a retreat-like setting. This year, three faculty fellows were selected from the Department of Communication: Dr. Leandra Hernández, Dr. Dalaki Livingston, and Dr. Curtis Newbold. These fellows represent a wide range of scholarly interests spanning health communication, Indigenous methodologies, and information design. 

Dr. Leandra H. Hernández, associate professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Communication, is a feminist health and media studies scholar whose research centers on Latina/o/x cultural health experiences, reproductive justice, gendered violence, and media representations. She is the co-author of one monograph, co-editor of six volumes, and a prolific contributor to leading journals in the field.

During her fellowship, Dr. Hernández worked on her project Queer Worldmaking in the Wasatch Range: An Oral History Project with the Salt Lake Area Queer Climbers Community. This research highlights the intersections of queer identity, outdoor recreation, and storytelling, extending her broader commitments to advocacy and critical qualitative inquiry.

Postdoctoral research fellow Dr. Dalaki Livingston brings a community-centered approach to his scholarship, with a focus on Indigenous deliberation, participatory democracy, and representation of Indigenous peoples in popular culture. A member of the Navajo Nation, Dr. Livingston has worked with the Center for the Ethics of Indigenous Genomic Research and the Genomics and Ethics Program for Native Students, combining deliberative theory with Indigenous methods to advance research grounded in sovereignty and community priorities.

In addition to his work in deliberation and Indigenous rights, he explores collaborative storytelling and tabletop roleplaying games as vehicles for community-building and navigating complex social issues. His writing at the Taft-Nicholson Center continues to develop these intersections of scholarship, play, and participatory communication.

Clinical Associate Professor of Strategic Communication Dr. Curtis Newbold is an expert in communication design, business communication, and information literacy. He is co-author of the forthcoming textbook Business and Professional Communication: A Human-Centered Approach (Sage, 2025) and is currently writing a book on the socio-cultural impact of educational infographics (Parlor Press).

As creator of the widely-read blog TheVisualCommunicationGuy.com, Dr. Newbold has built a reputation as both a scholar and practitioner of visual communication, delivering workshops and consulting with organizations worldwide. At the Taft-Nicholson Center, he dedicated time to his book project, exploring how infographics shape public understanding, education, and civic discourse.