APOC Faculty
Jonathan Aronson, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication
Professor of International Relations, School of International Relations
E-mail: aronson AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Aronson writes on issues related to international communications policy, globalization and international trade and trade negotiations. His current research focuses on ways in which communications and network developments related to privacy, equity, standard setting, competition policy, and international intellectual property shape the path of globalization. His most recent writings consider the implications of new communications technologies for globalization and international communications competition.
Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
Director of the Communication Technology and Community Program
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: ballrok AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Ball-Rokeach is author or editor of six books and numerous scholarly journal articles. She served as co-editor of Communication Research from 1992 to 1997. She has been a Fulbright scholar at the Hebrew University and a Rockefeller Fellow at the Bellagio Study Center, and is a fellow of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Her current research projects include “Metamorphosis: Transforming the ties that bind” - an ongoing research effort on global and urban communities through multi-level/multi-method field analyses of new and traditional communication flows.
François Bar, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Communication
Director of the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: fbar AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Bar’s research interests include comparative telecommunication policy; economic, strategic and social dimensions of computer networking; and new media and the Internet. His work has been published in books of collected studies, policy reports, and many major scholarly journals. He currently serves on the advisory boards of non-profit Compumentor, and start-ups Clickability and Polaris Wireless.
Manuel Castells, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society, Annenberg School for Communication
Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology
Professor of Planning, School of Policy, Planning, and Development
Professor of International Relations, School of International Relations
E-mail: castells AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Castells is the author of 22 academic books and editor or co-author of 21 additional books, as well as over 100 articles in academic journals. His most recent publications examine wide range of topics including mobile communications, media and power in the network society, such as Mobile Communication and Society (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006) co-authored with M. Fernandez-Ardevol, J. L. Qiu, and A. Sey; and La Transicion la Sociedad red (Barcelona: Ariel, 2007).
Peter Clarke, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication
Professor of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine
E-mail: chmc AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Clarke has directed many projects that apply advanced telecommunications to healthcare, including: the design and evaluation of multimedia kiosks to aid cancer patients and their families and experiments with videoconferencing support groups among illness survivors. His current interests center on improving human nutrition. He co-directs (with Susan H. Evans) From the Wholesaler to the Hungry, which has received awards for public service from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and the UPS Foundation.
Jeffrey Cole, Ph.D.
Research Professor and Director of the Center for the Digital Future
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: colej AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Cole founded and directs the World Internet Project, a long-term longitudinal look at the effects of computer and Internet technology on all aspects of society, which is conducted in over 20 countries. At the announcement of the project in June 1999, Vice President Al Gore praised Cole as a “true visionary providing the public with information on how to understand the impact of media.”He was Principal Investigator of the Network Television Violence Monitoring Project and is currently Co-Principal Investigator of Annenberg Program on Online Communities.
Geoffrey Cowan, Ph.D.
Professor of Journalism & Communication
Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership
Annenberg School for Communication
Professor of Law, Gould School of Law
E-mail: gcowan AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
For more than 30 years, Professor Cowan has been an important force in almost every facet of the communication world - as a public interest lawyer, academic administrator, best-selling author and award-winning teacher, playwright, television producer, and government official. When serving as the Dean of the Annenberg School, he initiated and involved in the work and research of a number of major centers and projects. He is Co-Principal Investigator of Annenberg Program on Online Communities.
Janet Fulk, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication
Professor of Management and Organization, Marshall School of Business
E-mail: fulk AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Fulk's research interests focus on communication and knowledge management, information technology for strategic alliances, and social aspects of knowledge and distributed intelligence. Her recent NSF sponsored projects examine how communication and information systems are employed to foster collaboration and knowledge distribution within and between organizations. New projects underway focus on alliances and partnership networks including NGOs and other NGOs, IGOs, and the state. She is Co-Director of the Annenberg Program on Online Communities Research Initiative.
Tom Goodnight, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication
Director of Annenberg Doctoral Program in Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: gtg AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Goodnight has been accorded career awards in Rhetoric and Communication Theory by the NCA and been named among the five top scholars in argumentation of the last 50 years by the AFA. His current research interests include risk, health, and environmental communication, deliberation and postwar society, science communication, argument and aesthetics, public discourse studies, and communicative reason in controversy.
Larry Gross, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication
Director of School of Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: larry.gross AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Gross is a specialist in the areas of media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies. Gross has written and edited books covering a wide variety of issues in visual and cultural communication. In coordination with Professor Manuel Castells, Professor Gross recently launched a new scholarly publication: the International Journal of Communication. He is Co-Principal Investigator of Annenberg Program on Online Communities.
Andrea Hollingshead, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication
Professor of Management and Organization, Marshall School of Business
E-mail: aholling AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Hollingshead’s research investigates how groups collaborate, and create community using communication technologies. She has had extensive support from the National Science Foundation for her research. Her publications include two books: Theories of Small Groups: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2005, co-edited with Marshall Scott Poole) and Groups Interacting with Technology (1994, with Joseph E. McGrath). Her articles have appeared in top-tier journals in the fields of communication, psychology and management. She is Co-Director of the Annenberg Program on Online Communities Research Initiative.
Ben Lee, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: bblee AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Lee teaches introductory courses on communication and technologies, research methods in the undergraduate and graduate programs. He is curious about how people make sense of and act in volatile and uncertain environments and has researched why people tend to hold losses in bear markets and how not to do that. He continues to explore how people manage their finances in today's increasingly turbulent environments.
Kwan Min Lee, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: kwanminl AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Lee specializes in social and psychological impacts of communication and information technologies (e.g., computer games, mobile devices, Internet), and human machine interaction including human computer interaction (HCI) and human robot interaction (HRI). His research has been published in major journals in communication, computer science, education, psychology and telecommunication policy.
Margaret McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: mmclaugh AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor McLaughlin is a key investigator at USC's Integrated Media Systems Center, a NSF Engineering Research Center, and an investigator with ISNSR, a center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Neuroplasticity and Stroke Rehabilitation. Her current research focuses on the design and evaluation of haptic (tactile) systems for functional recovery from stroke, access to Internet technologies for the elderly, and building health social capital among young cancer survivors through mobile technologies and social networking applications. She is Co-Director of the Annenberg Program on Online Communities Research Initiative.
Lynn Miller, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: lmiller AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Miller specializes in interpersonal, intrapersonal, and health communication. She has been Principal Investigator on interdisciplinary HIV-prevention projects totaling over $7 million funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and other agencies. Her research uses virtual interactive and gaming technologies to study, predict and reduce real-life risky decision-making for high-risk, diverse, community-based populations.
Peter Monge, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Director of Annenberg Networks Network
Annenberg School for Communication
Professor of Management and Organization, Marshall School of Business
E-mail: monge AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Monge is an expert on organizational communication networks, collaborative information systems, globalization and communication processes, coevolutionary theory, and research methods. His research has been published in numerous leading communication and organizational journals, handbooks and book chapters. His most recent book (with Noshir Contractor), Theories of Communication Networks, was published by Oxford University Press in 2003.
Larry Pryor, M.S.
Associate Professor of Journalism
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: lpryor AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Pryor was formerly a reporter for The Louisville Courier-Journal and, later, a staff writer and editor for the Los Angeles Times. He teaches online writing and reporting at USC. He also conducts research on immersive, 3D technology and the use of perspectives in digital technology. He also works on applications of chaos theory to journalism and how the Internet and traditional media interact.
Patricia Riley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Communication
Director of the Master’s Program of Global Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: priley AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Riley a specialist in organizational communication and internationally known for her work on institutional politics and organizational culture change. Her most recent research focuses on the role of communication infrastructure in knowledge management processes and on the role of communication and information technologies in organizational change and transformation. She has a new grant funded by the DOD to help develop and evaluate virtual training.
Jonathan Taplin
Adjunct Professor of Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: jtaplin AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Taplin’s areas of specialization include international communication management and digital media entertainment. He was the Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, a producer of television documentaries and feature films. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival seven times.
Douglas Thomas, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: douglast AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Thomas is the founding editor of Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, a quarterly international journal that aims to publish innovative theoretical and empirical research about games and culture within the context of interactive media. Harvard Business Review named his 2008 article, “The Gamer Disposition,” as one of 2008’s “breakthrough ideas.”
Dmitri Williams, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: Dmitri.williams AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Professor Williams is a part of the Annenberg Program on Online Communities. His research focuses on the social and economic impacts of new media, with a focus on online games. He was the first researcher to use online games for experiments, and to undertake longitudinal research on video games. He continues to study the psychology of online populations, with projects involving community, identity, sexuality, economics and neuroscience.
Ernest James Wilson III, Ph.D.
Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication
Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication
E-mail: ernest.wilson AT usc DOT edu
Annenberg web page
Dean Wilson is also a senior fellow at USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy. His scholarship focuses on the convergence of communication and information technology, public policy and the public interest. His current research endeavors concentrate on the politics of global sustainable innovation in high-technology industries; on China-Africa relations; and the role of culture in U.S. national security policy.
