On August 7-10, 2025, School of Communication (SCOM) doctoral students and faculty presented at the 2025 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Conference in San Francisco, California. Among SCOM’s attendees were Sunah Lee, Junho Park, Alessandra Noli Peschiera, Ashley Johns, Oladoyin Abiona, Sun Young “Sunny” Park, Akansha Kharkwal, Talalah Khan, Assistant Professor Yin Yang, James E. Kirk Professor Rachel Bailey, and Professor and School Director Patrick Merle.
“The AEJMC Conference was a great, open space for collegiate scholarship with both new scholars and existing faculty all willing to support and guide each other,” Noli Peschiera said.
Through the 2025 theme, “Leading in Times of Momentous Change: Individual and Collective Opportunities,” the AEJMC Conference focused on mass communication and journalism education through innovative research and collaborative engagement. SCOM’s presentations at the conference covered topics such as social media reader engagement, activism washing, decoding health technology, and gendered precarity in Korean TV newsrooms.
Doctoral candidate Junho Park and Dr. Merle respectively won awards at the AEJMC conference.
Park was awarded as an AEJMC Diversity & Inclusion Career Development Fellow by the AEJMC Career Development and Mass Communication and Society Division.
“This opportunity allowed me to network with other outstanding scholars across the world and listen to many thought-provoking ideas worth exploring,” Park said.
Dr. Merle and his co-authors were awarded third place in the AEJMC Public Relations Division for their research, “Public Relations Practitioners’ Expectations for Graduate Education.” Their research presented results from a survey of public relations practitioners based in the United States on their perception of graduate education.
“It is always appreciated to be recognized for some research, and it is particularly meaningful here, as this project has concrete implications for academic units eager to review their graduate programs,” Merle said.
Looking forward, SCOM’s faculty and staff will continue to work on their respective research endeavors, improving spaces in academia, professionalism, and beyond.
“I was so proud of my School of Communication colleagues shining at the conference as active scholars advancing the scholarship in each of their research areas. I am grateful for being part of such a wonderful community,” Lee said.
The 2026 annual AEJMC conference is set to take place in August in New Orleans. Stay tuned for SCOM’s involvement!