Kimberly R. Jordan, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Ohio University College of Business, where she teaches strategic business communication and leadership and serves as Co-Director of the Emerging Leaders program. Her teaching centers on a simple but demanding goal: helping students learn to think critically, communicate clearly, and work effectively with others amid the ambiguity of organizations and teams.

Jordan has taught Strategic Business Communication in Ohio University’s Integrated Business Cluster since 2017. In this interdisciplinary program, students work in teams on complex business challenges, conducting research, developing evidence-based insights, and communicating recommendations to professionals. She designs learning experiences that ask students to wrestle with ambiguity, test their thinking against evidence, reflect on their experiences, and and develop the judgment to make and defend their own decisions. Her teaching also extends to leadership development and international experiential learning, including consulting experiences in Tokyo with Japanese and multinational organizations.

Her scholarship grows directly from her classroom. Jordan’s research examines communication, team identity, and experiential learning, with a particular interest in how educators can design experiences that help students develop as professionals. A Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, she also brings strengths-based development into her work with students and emerging leaders. She earned her Ph.D. from Ohio University in 2025, studying organizational communication, leadership, and higher education; her dissertation explored the development of team identity in the Integrated Business Cluster.

Dana Cloud is Professor and Director of the School of Communication, Film, and Media Studies. Before joining the faculty at UC, she had appointments at the University of Texas, Austin, and Syracuse University, where she directed premier graduate programs. Dr. Cloud’s work, focused on Marxist and queer theory, critical-cultural studies and the rhetoric of social movements, includes four sole-authored books, most recently A New Rhetoric of Social Movements (Cognella, 2026) and Reality Bites: Rhetoric and the Circulation of Truth Claims in US Political Culture (Ohio State, 2018). In addition, she has published journal articles in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and Critical Studies in Media Communication, among others. She was a leading figure in debates over ideology and materiality in the discipline. The recipient of many national and regional awards (including NCA awards for activism and social justice and graduate mentoring), Dr. Cloud is a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association and a Fellow of the University of Cincinnati Graduate College. She is also a longtime activist for social justice. 

Shatakshi Semwal is a doctoral candidate in Health Communication and a Graduate Teaching Associate in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. Since 2023, she has taught Public Speaking, Communication and Persuasion, Techniques of Small Group Discussion, and Communication Among Cultures.

Her teaching emphasizes participation, thoughtful dialogue, and connections between communication concepts and everyday experiences. She strives to create a welcoming classroom where students from different backgrounds feel comfortable contributing, asking questions, and developing confidence in their communication skills. Alongside her undergraduate teaching, she has mentored incoming graduate teaching associates and shared classroom activities and perspectives on student mental health at the Eastern Communication Association’s annual convention.

Her research examines maternal and mental health communication, family relationships, and social support. Her dissertation explores postpartum distress and communication among South Asian immigrant mothers in the United States. Before beginning her doctoral studies, she completed her undergraduate and master’s education in India, where she also contributed to educational research and student engagement initiatives.

Shatakshi is grateful to receive Ohio’s Distinguished Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for 2026. She credits the encouragement and mentorship of her faculty, the support of her colleagues, and the students who continue to shape her growth as an educator.

Azade Asadi Damavandi is a third-year Ph.D. student in Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. Her research examines news media and audience trust, online reviews and consumer behavior, and the emerging role of artificial intelligence in journalism.

During her graduate program, Azade has published three peer-reviewed journal articles in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Islamic Marketing, and Jurnal Minds: Manajemen Ide dan Inspirasi. Her research has examined digital consumer behavior, news media trust, and the relationship between audiences’ trust in different news media and their news consumption. She has also contributed to a white paper on best practices in funded journalism and trust in local news media.

Her scholarly achievements include the 2025 Top Student Research Paper Award at the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Annual Conference and third place in the 2026 BEA Paper Competition. She has presented her research at national and international conferences, including 2026 AEJMC, 2025 OCA, 2025 CSCA, and the Global Communication Association (GCA 2024).

As a Research Assistant under the mentorship of Dr. Louisa Ha, Azade has played an active role in advancing research projects focused on journalism funding, local news trust, and social media influencers. Through the “Journalism Funding Partners project” and “the Global Social Media Influencer Research Lab”, she has contributed to research development, scholarly collaboration, and the dissemination of research findings. Her work with Dr. Louisa Ha has provided opportunities to apply her research expertise while contributing to collaborative projects addressing emerging issues in journalism and communication.

Dr. Divya S. is an Assistant Professor of Communication in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University, where she teaches communication theory, health communication, and human-machine communication. Her teaching focuses on preparing students to become thoughtful, critical, and responsible communicators in an increasingly AI-mediated world. She developed the Human-AI Communication Studio within COMM 2010: Communication Theory, a large-enrollment core course serving approximately 120 students each semester. The Studio integrates AI literacy into communication theory through interactive experiences such as the AI Showdown, Prompt Creativity Lab, and AI Escape Room, where students evaluate AI-generated messages, identify errors and biases, strengthen prompting skills, and apply communication theory to human-AI interaction.

Her teaching also emphasizes collaborative and inclusive pedagogy. With her teaching team, she developed the Co-Educators Framework, which positions graduate teaching assistants as active pedagogical partners rather than traditional assistants. This approach was published in the Journal of Communication Pedagogy in the article, “The Co-Educators Framework: An Illustrative Account of Shared Pedagogical Practice and Inclusive Teaching in a Large-Enrollment Communication Course.” Through this model, graduate instructors receive ongoing mentoring while contributing meaningfully to course design and student learning. Dr. Divya hopes to continue building on this work by developing innovative, inclusive, and engaging learning experiences that strengthen the classroom environment and better prepare students to communicate thoughtfully and effectively in a rapidly changing world.