Professor Madeleine Blais is a Pulitzer-prize winning author who teaches in the Journalism Program with a specialty in narrative nonfiction writing. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard Univeristy, she has written for the Boston Globe, the Trenton Times, the Miami Herald from 1979-87. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing while at the Miami Herald, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Northeast Magazine in the Hartford Courant, Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday, Detroit Free Press, and the New York Times. She is the author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle (1995), which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in nonfiction and named one of the Top 100 sports books of the 20th Century by ESPN; The Heart Is an Instrument; Portraits in Journalism (1992); and Uphill Walkers: Memoir of a Family (2001), honored with a Massachusetts Book Award and recipient of the Ken Book Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. She is a member of the advisory board for Goucher College’s MFA program in creative nonfiction and she serves on the editorial board of Riverteeth. At the University of Masschusetts. Blais serves as the writing advisor for students applying for international postgraduate fellowships.
Professor Donal Carbaugh PhD specializes in cultural analyses of communication and has published Cultures in Conversation (2005) which was designated Outstanding Book of the Year by the International and Intercultural Communication Division of the National Communication Association. Earlier, his book, Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact (1990), and article, “Soul and Self: Soviet and American cultures in conversation” (1993) were similarly honored. His first book, Talking American, was identified as a “Favorite Book of the Past Twenty-Five Years” in Contemporary Sociology. In 2007-2008, Professor Carbaugh was Fulbright’s Distinguished Professor and Bicentennial Chair of American Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. In 1992, he was elected a Visiting Senior Member of Linacre College, Oxford, which is a permanent appointment. He is currently Associate editor of the Russian Journal of Communication (Marquette University journals), and Chair of the University’s International Studies Council, member of the Advisory Board of the Security Needs Assessment Protocol project, and has been Chair of both the Language and Social Interaction Division of the International Communication Association and the International and Intercultural Division of the National Communication Association. He has lectured all over Europe, in Asia, and served as a consultant to several organizations and the United States Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment.
Professor Jarice Hanson PhD has experience in conducting evaluation procedures and identifying best practices for matters of ICTs and public policy. Most recently, she has worked with senior researchers for the Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP) at the Georgia Institute of Technology to explore issues of the impact of public policy on Municipal Wireless Systems for the disabled and disenfranchised in urban and rural locations in the U.S. and abroad. She has participated in crafting an agenda for action for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and is currently active in professional associations dealing with international issues concerning Internet governance. Current research deals with the Information Technology sector and differential problems for groups of workers in multi-national organizations.
Much of her research has focused on behavioral issues related to use of digital technologies, matters of law and applications of public policy. Since 2004, she has held the Verizon Chair in Telecommunications at Temple University, an endowed chair, concurrent with her full-time position at the University of Massachusetts.
Recent policy work involves issues of the digital divide, and what has become known as the "disability divide." See: Paul M.A. Baker, Jarice Hanson, and Avonne Bell, “Municiple WiFi and Policy Implications for People With Disabilities,” in Select Proceedings of the Ninth Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, Marijn Janssen, Soon Ae Chun, and Ramon Gil-Garcia, (Eds.), (Digital Government Society of North America, 2008); and Paul M.A. Baker, Jarice Hanson, Avonne Bell, and William Myhill, “Legal Issues on Disability and Information Access,” Requested for a special issue of Information Polity, on “Government Sharing and Integration.” (under review).
Professor Cynthia Suopis PhD is a lecturer in the University Without Walls program, and communication department at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst. She is responsible for the management, administration and delivery of academic curriculum of a non-traditional student Bachelor of Arts and Science degree completion program. Dr. Suopis has taught courses in Writing, Public Speaking, Interpersonal Communication, Conflict and Mediation, Perspectives on Learning, Cultural Codes, Health Communication, Communicating Culture in Organizations and Reflections on Experiential Learning in Technology. She has experience in teaching in live, online and blended environments. Her research focuses on health communication and organizational communication. She has been a consultant for the Bayer Institute for Healthcare Communication and the Donahue Institute.
The Dean of the College CSBS and a representative of ORBICOM-UNESCO are ex-officio members of the Board of Directors of the Center CSSC.
»