Dr. Pooja Ichplani, a School of Communication (SCOM) student was selected as part of the Visiting Future Faculty Program at SUNY Buffalo, which was held from October 14-17, 2024, in Buffalo, New York.

Recently, Ichplani defended her dissertation, “The critical role of social support from moderate ties for effective risk prevention against intimate partner violence: Insights from formative evaluation of interpersonal network ties in the Big Bend.” 

During the conference, she had the opportunity to explore the city of Buffalo alongside scholars from various disciplines. She engaged in departmental activities, deepening her understanding of the faculty and their work.

Reflecting on this year’s exceptionally competitive application review, Ichplani noted, “After meeting faculty and students, it was apparent that I had alignment with them in the areas of gender-based violence, social and behavior change communication, and community-based research, which was beneficial for their department to showcase from a visiting scholar like me.”

She hopes that after learning about her research, faculty and graduate students understand how important it is for community-based research to be driven by a formative evaluation. “I hope they were able to find the method or the results insightful to be applied in their future research to build upon,” Ichplani said.

Ichplani found the visit to be incredibly valuable. “It gave me an opportunity to experience what a job talk would look like as I navigate the job market, how I would interact with host institutions, and just an immersive way of transitioning from a doctoral candidate into a faculty,” she said. She intends to collaborate with the departmental faculty she met to examine nuances of community-based research for health and to produce scholarship for conferences and journals.