Annenberg Networks Network

Francois Bar

Francois Bar

Francois Bar is Associate Professor of Communication in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He directs the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication. During the 2006-07 academic year, he is a senior fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication.

His research interests include comparative telecommunication policy, as well as economic, strategic and social dimensions of computer networking, new media and the Internet. His research has been published in books of collected studies, in policy reports, and in such journals as Information Technologies and International Development, Telecommunications Policy, The Information Society, Organization Science, Infrastructure Economics and Policy, Communications & Strategies, Re’seaux, and the International Journal of Technology Management. He currently serves on the advisory boards of non-profit Compumentor, and start-ups Clickability and Polaris Wireless.

Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells is the Wallis Annenberg Chair Professor of Communication Technology and Society at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, since 2003. He is, as well, the Marvin and Joanne Grossman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Technology and Society at M.I.T, and Research Professor of the Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona. Prior to his appointment at USC he was, from 1979 to 2003, Professor of Planning and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

He is a Fellow of the European Academy, of the Spanish Royal Academy of Economics, and of the British Academy, and has received 16 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. His trilogy “The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture” (Blackwell 1996-2003) has been translated into 22 languages. Among other appointments, he has been a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Committee on Information Technology, and of the President of South Africa’s International Advisory Committee on Technology and Development. He is currently a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council, the research funding institution of the European Union.

Janet Fulk

Janet Fulk

Janet Fulk is a Professor of Communications in the Annenberg School for Communication and Professor of Management & Organization in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Her publications include Policing Hawthorne (2001, with Gregory Patton and Peter Monge), Shaping Organizational Form: Communication, Connection and Community (1999, with Gerardine DeSanctis), and Organizations and Communication Technology (1990, with Charles Steinfield), which won the best book award from the National Communication Association in 1990.

Her research articles and chapters cover topics including knowledge networks, information technology for strategic alliance networks, social aspects of knowledge and distributed intelligence, social media use, networking strategies of nongovernmental organizations, and online communities. Her research has been sponsored by a series of grants from the National Science Foundation in the United States, as well as private corporations and governmental organizations. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Management.

Peter Monge

Peter Monge

Peter Monge is Professor of Communication at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Professor of Management and Organization at the Marshall School of Business. His most recent book (with Noshir Contractor), Theories of Communication Networks, was published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2003. He has also published Communicating and Organizing (with Vince Farace and Hamish Russell), Multivariate Techniques in Human Communication Research (with Joe Cappella), Policing Hawthorne (with Janet Fulk and Greg Patton) and Reasoning with Statistics (5th ed, with Fred Williams).

His research on organizational communication networks, collaborative information systems, globalization and communication processes, coevolutionary theory, and research methods has been published in numerous leading communication and organizational journals, handbooks and book chapters. He is a former editor of Communication Research (1986 to 1993) and a fellow and former president of the International Communication Association (1997–1998). In 2003 he received the Distinguished Scholar award from the Organizational Communication and Information Systems Division of the Academy of Management, and the Distinguished Research Award from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association.

Lauren Frank

Lauren Frank

Lauren Frank graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Psychology, writing her thesis on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and children’s television. She earned her Masters in Health Science from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in May 2006. She has worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services conducting research on maternal and child health.

Her current focus is health communication, mass media, and organizational communication. In particular, she in interested in the way that public health organizations collaborate and communicate with each other and with media organizations. Last year, Lauren presented a paper on lending networks in Ecuador at the Sunbelt conference. The paper is currently being prepared for submission fo publication. For more information on Lauren’s research, please visit her website: www.laurenbfrank.com.

Jessica Gould

Jessica Gould

Jessica Gould (B.A.-Psychology, UC Santa Cruz) is a 3rd year doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication.

Her research focuses on organizational communication. More specifically, she is interested the processes of collaboration and knowledge sharing among members of both distributed and collocated knowledge-intensive teams.

Jessica is also interested in the use of information communication technologies, in particular social media applications, in organizational settings.

Bettina Heiss

Bettina Heiss

Bettina Heiss graduated from Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minn., with a major in Communication and a minor in Conflict Studies. In the broadest sense, she is interested in the way communication networks evolve over time.

In the context of such networks, her areas of interest include knowledge emergence, accumulation and deterioration; technology use and virtuality; and the social psychology of networked organizing.

She hopes to explore these topics further by examining inter-organizational activist networks involved in social movements.

Drew Margolin

Drew Margolin

Drew is a PhD Candidate at Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California. Drew’s research focuses on the understanding the relationship between social networks, epistemology and communication in an evolving, adaptive system. Drew’s current work examines the co-evolution of networks and discourse in different social contexts, such as within scientific disciplines, financial markets and NGO communities.

Prior to coming to USC Annenberg, Drew was Chief Financial Officer of Medley Global Advisors, a research firm that provided information about government policy to hedge funds and investment banks. Drew graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1996 with distinction in Economics.

Cindy Shen

Cindy Shen

Cuihua (Cindy) Shen is a PhD Candidate at Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California. Her fundamental research interest is to understand human activities in the new social spaces created by the Internet and new communication technologies. Specifically, she studies virtual communities that are created for information sharing, collaborative production, and entertainment. Methodologically, she employs quantitative as well as social network analytic techniques. She has done research on the collaboration structure of Open Source software developer community, the evolution of online communities, and the social dynamics of virtual worlds.

Cuihua comes from Suzhou, a beautiful city in southeast China. Before coming to Annenberg, Cuihua earned her BA in English at Zhejiang University and her MA in communication at National University of Singapore.

For more information, check out Cindy’s website and blog. A complete CV can be downloaded here.

Kimberlie Stephens

Kimberlie Stephens

Kimberlie Stephens received her doctoral degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include interorganizational collaboration and strategic alliance networks. More specifically she is interested in the process of how these relationships play out, including what type of information is shared, what makes interactions successful, and how organizations can learn from their experiences and apply newly gained knowledge to future collaborative relationships. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Kimberlie received her B.A. in Communication from the Annenberg School and worked for several years as a professional conference planner in the continuing medical education field.

Kimberlie Stephens received her doctoral degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include interorganizational collaboration and strategic alliance networks. More specifically she is interested in the process of how these relationships play out, including what type of information is shared, what makes interactions successful, and how organizations can learn from their experiences and apply newly gained knowledge to future collaborative relationships. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Kimberlie received her B.A. in Communication from the Annenberg School and worked for several years as a professional conference planner in the continuing medical education field.

Matthew Weber

Matthew Weber

Matthew Weber graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Economics, and received an M.S. in Journalism and Media Management at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Matt is interested in communication and technology, with a focus on the impact of emerging technologies on the media industry.

He has recently given lectures and presentations on the evolution of the newspaper industry and the business of media. He is a member of the Phi Beta Tau Journalism Honors Society, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Previously, he has worked as a media strategist for Starcom Worldwide and as an assistant brand manager for Tribune Corp., where he launched multiple new media initiatives.

For more information on Matthew’s research, click here.

Amanda Beacom

Amanda Beacom

Amanda’s research interests focus on organizational and health communication. Amanda is interested in how information, knowledge, and best practices are disseminated and shared among individuals, organizations, and networks, particularly in health care.

Amanda worked previously in health education for the National Kidney Foundation and in editorial positions for several medical journals. She holds a bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University and a master’s degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University.

Sandra Evans

Sandra Evans

Sandra Evans graduated from Northwestern University with a double-major in Radio, Television and Film, and International Studies. She received an MSc in Global Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MA in Global Communication at the University of Southern California.

Sandra is interested in organizational communication and the intersection of this field with networks, online communities, globalization and the use of new media in various organizational environments.

Previously, Sandra worked in film and television postproduction in Los Angeles on projects ranging from award-winning documentary and independent films, to movie trailers, to feature films.

Young Ji Kim

Young Ji Kim

Young Ji (pronounced as Young-gee) received her BA in mass communication from Yonsei University in Korea. She did her MA study in human communication at Arizona State University’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (thesis focused on socio-cultural factors in the use of Web search services).

Prior to her graduate study, Young Ji interned as a research assistant in three organizations, namely, Korean National Commission for UNESCO, Chosun daily newspaper, and TNS Korea, a market research firm. At Annenberg, she hopes to study networks in organizations and multicultural communities, focusing on the ways in which knowledge is shared and managed through networks. She is also interested in socio-cultural factors that affect new technology use.

Li Lu

Li Lu

Li Lu received her B.A. from Peking University with double majors in Publishing Science and World History. She will receive her M.S. from Communication Department, Cornell University. During her undergraduate study, Li spent two summers conducting ethnographic research in Northern Tibet, especially the difficulties that prevent women from receiving education.

Prior to her graduate study, Li interned in Hoffman Agency, an international PR firm concentrating on high technology products. At Annenberg, she hopes to study knowledge management in organizations, especially how interpersonal relationships influence knowledge sharing and expertise judgment. Li is also interested in organizational development from ecological perspective.

Jingbo Meng

Jingbo Meng

Jingbo Meng earned B.A. in both Economics and Journalism from Peking University and a M.A. in Communication from the Ohio State University and she is currently a second year doctoral student at the Annenberg. She is interested in the intersection between communication technology, organization and health communication.

Jingbo Meng is currently conducting research in information sharing in small groups and group dynamics in online communities.

Allison Noyes

Allison Noyes

Allison Noyes graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a major in politics and a minor in philosophy.

Her honors research examined the role that different political ideologies assign to intelligence information in the foreign policy-making process.

Allison developed an interest in organizational communication while working for the Federal Government and plans to focus her doctoral research on communication networks between foreign policy and intelligence organizations.

Nina O’Brien

Nina O'Brien

Nina O’Brien graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelors in Communications and Textual Studies, and received her Masters Degree in Media Ecology from New York University’s Department of Culture and Communication. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Golden Key National honor societies.

Nina’s current research focuses on labor networks and relations in communication and entertainment industries.

Before beginning graduate work at USC’s Annenberg School, Nina worked in independent film production, as a full-time substitute instructor in the Department of Media Culture at the CUNY College of Staten Island, and as an adjunct professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Marymount Manhattan College, both in New York.

Katherine Ognyanova

Katherine Ognyanova

Katya Ognyanova is currently a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California. Her areas of research include new media and social aspects of Internet technologies. She is also interested in digital policy and information privacy.

Katya received her B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Sofia. Her M.A. degree from the same university is in Virtual Culture.

Before joining Annenberg, she worked for the Economedia publishing group. Her responsibilities as a writer and analyst included observing trends in emerging technologies, online business and society.

Poong Oh

Poong Oh

Poong Oh received his B.A. and M.A. in mass communication from Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea; minor in philosophy) and his M.S. in journalism & mass communication from Iowa State University (minors in statistics and sociology). He presented several papers in the fields of political communication, international communication, media effects, and communication theory at the recent conferences of the ICA and the AEJMC. One of his articles was published in Journal of Korean Journalism and Communication (title: Television Program as Facilitator of Social Capital: Construction of Social Capital Index for Television Program).

His major interests focus on the complex and dynamic processes of social interactions and the roles of communications in the processes, in which social structures arise from interactions among individual actors and the emergent structures constrain and enable individuals’ social actions. More specifically, he is interested in how people share their experience and knowledge through various communication channels, how their opinions and attitudes are formed, and how communication relations evolve through the iterative processes. In terms of methodology, he is also interested in social network analysis, computational/mathematical modeling, and advanced statistical methods.

Courtney Schultz

Courtney Schultz

Courtney Schultz earned a B.A. and M.A. in Media Studies from Stanford University and she is now a third year doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication.

Courtney is currently researching in the area of small group and organizational communication with a focus on communication technology, transactive memory systems, and online communities.