Faculty

Rao

Pallavi Rao has a Ph.D. in Media Studies from Indiana University Bloomington (2021). Her research interests are media and cultural studies, contemporary South Asian media, and anti-caste & feminist media studies. Her doctoral work examined caste-based media ownership in contemporary news and popular culture in India. She has also published her research in the Journal of Communication Inquiry, South Asian Film and Media, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies on caste and patriarchy, popular Hindi film, and India's digital media and entertainment culture.

Morimoto

Lori Morimoto researches transnational/transcultural fandoms and transnational media co-production and distribution. Her work has been published in East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, Transformative Works and Cultures, Participations, Asian Cinema, and Mechademia: Second Arc.

Clay

Anna Katherine (Clemmons) Clay is a freelance writer and an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. She is a 17-year veteran writer, reporter and producer for ESPN, where she wrote everything from 5,000-word features for ESPN’s Outside the Lines to technical breakdowns for ESPN the Magazine. She has produced video features for ESPN's 'Monday Night Countdown,' 'SportsCenter,' ESPN the Magazine's 'Body Issue,' and more.

Williams

Bruce A. Williams received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota and has taught at the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois, and the London School of Economics. He is a Taylor Professor in Media Studies and he is broadly interested in the relationship between media and democratic politics. His current research interest focuses on the role of a changing media environment in shaping citizenship in the United States.

Vaidhyanathan

Siva Vaidhyanathan is the Robertson Professor of Media Studies and director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia.

Swartz

Lana Swartz is an Assistant Professor in Department of Media Studies. Most of her work is on money and other media technologies. Her research on topics like bitcoin, mobile wallets, and historical money technologies like the Diners' Club Card has been published in leading journals, including Information, Communication and Society; Theory, Culture and Society; and Women’s Studies Quarterly.

Nemer

David Nemer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies, and an Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Anthropology and in the Latin American Studies program at the University of Virginia. He is also a Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society (BKC). His research and teaching interests cover the intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS), Anthropology of Technology, ICT for Development (ICT4D), and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

Little

William G. Little is an Associate Professor, General Faculty in the Department of Media Studies. He is a former Associate Professor of English at DePauw University. He is the author of The Waste Fix: Seizures of the Sacred from Upton Sinclair to The Sopranos (Routledge 2002), as well as articles on film and on contemporary American literature.

Kokas

Aynne Kokas is the C.K. Yen Professor at the Miller Center and a Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. Kokas’ research examines Sino-U.S. media and technology relations. Her book Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty (Oxford University Press, October 2022) argues that exploitative Silicon Valley data governance practices help China build infrastructures for global control.

Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton joined the Media Studies faculty in the Fall of 2014 and has a joint appointment with the American Studies program. He is a cultural historian who studies sound, media, and popular culture, and his other areas of interest include film, sports, television, and journalism.

Department of Media Studies

Rao