Graduate Student Research Areas

Kelly M. Bergstrom is a second year MA student in Communication & Culture.  Her research is focused on the sociality of Massively Mulitplayer Online Role-Playing Games as well as the slippage between offline and online worlds. She maintains an (irregularly updated) blog about her research at http://kellybergstrom.blogspot.com/

James Butler is pursuing a PhD in Culture and Society. He completed a BA in Communications (Hon) at the University of Calgary in 2005 and a Master of Philosophy in Humanities at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2007. His research area is in identity construction.  For his doctoral dissertation he is proposing to study how a group of Mi'kmaq in Newfoundland and Labrador are implementing an Agreement in Principle recently signed withthe federal government.

Rebecca Carruthers Den Hoed is a second year PhD student in the Communications Studies program. She holds a BA in Mathematics and Rhetoric from the University of Waterloo, and an MA in English from Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on the rhetoric of science: that is, how scientists persuade each other, recruit each other to join intellectual allegiances, and manufacture reliable scientific knowledge.

Naor Cohen is a first year PhD student in the Communications Studies program. He holds a BA in political sciences and communication and a MA in political psychology from Haifa University in Israel. His research interests deal with questions of political legitimacy in the age of the Internet; as well as the role of public intellectualism in shaping political sphere and discourses.

Delia Dumitrica is a PhD candidate in Communications Studies, working on meaning-making processes around the Internet. She is interested in nationalism and communication media. For more info: http://www.ucalgary.ca/dddumitr

Claudia Cristina Fuentes Izaguirre holds a BA from Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes and is a MA student in the Faculty of Communication and Culture. She is researching gay and lesbian cinema in Latin America, specifically the way North American lesbian films impact members of the lesbian community in Aguascalientes, a Mexican city.

Iain Macpherson is in the fourth year of his PhD, specializing in organizational communication under the supervision of Dr. Barbara Schneider. His research interests range across all things involving Japan, globalization theories, cross-cultural business communication, and discourse analysis.

Sharon Mah is a PhD candidate in communication studies, completing her dissertation research on telehealth practices in three Alberta First Nation communities.  Her research is informed by a community based participatory approach using a case study method.

Olga Orda is in her first year in the Masters of Communications Studies program.  Olga's research interests include new media, democracy and 'civic culture'; nvironmental communication and sustainability; media and advocacy. Her honours thesis at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, "Enabling Citizenship: The development of youth peer-to-peer networks and student self-governance practices in Ukraine", led her to do field work with Ukrainain youth, community organizations and a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funded United Nations Development Program in Kiev, Ukraine (2007).

Chelsea Sambells is a second year MA student in Communication Studies, writing a dissertation on the Battle of Britain (1940-1941) and investigating the speeches of Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, to determine if their rhetoric helped to achieve the battlefield outcome. Chelsea works as a teaching assistant at the University of Calgary, an accounting assistant at an engineering firm and volunteers as an artifact manager for the Air Force Museums, which will be opening in the spring of 2009 at the Military Museums in Calgary. Chelsea would like to continue graduate studies overseas, preferably in a place which inspires her to write, read, play video games, speak German and of course, to travel.