Join us to celebrate the class of 2025. Find info, watch the web stream and read about the student and faculty award winners of 2025.

People and Partners

Our Center supports cutting-edge faculty research on the ways emerging media can impact society, and how media be creatively developed through community-engaged practices, through activities including monthly research jams, research mini-grants and fellows programs.

 

Interested in becoming affiliated with the Center? Read our membership guidelines and fill out our application form below.

 

People

Partner Centers, Labs, and Institutes

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A group of smiling faculty at the CTM launch event, "media in motion," in March 2025.
Photo by Charles Gauthier.

Leadership

  •
    Adriana de Souza e Silva

    Professor, Director of the Center for Transformative Media

    Professor of Communication Studies, Director of the Center for Transformative Media and Chair of the CAMD AI Advisory Council.

Staff

Advisory Board

  • Scott Campbell

    Professor, Rinehart Chair in Mediated Communication, The Ohio State University

    Scott Campbell’s research centers on political communication, media effects, and public opinion. He explores how media shapes political attitudes and behaviors in contemporary society.

  • Ragan Glover (Advisory Board Chair)

    Director, Michigan Research and Discovery Scholars, University of Michigan

    Dr. Glover is a Communication scholar researching users’ experiences with mobile and immersive technologies. She co-edited Hybrid Play and presents widely at ICA and AoIR.

  • Eric Gordon

    Professor of the Practice and Director of the Center for Media Innovation & Social Impact, Boston University

    Eric Gordon is director of the Center for Media Innovation & Social Impact (MISI) at Boston University, where he studies how data and emerging technologies shape democratic governance. His research centers on collaborative research and design processes that enable meaningful public participation.

  • James Katz

    Feld Professor of Emerging Media Studies, Boston University

    James E. Katz founded Boston University’s Division of Emerging Media Studies and explores AI, social media, and human-robot interaction. His research shapes global conversations on technology ethics.

  • Black and white photo of Jonathan Donner, a white man with glasses wearing a quarter-zip sweatshirt.

    Jonathan Donner

    Senior Director of Research, Caribou Digital

    Jonathan Donner is a researcher, author, and consultant focused on advancing digital inclusion in the developing world. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Communication Theory and Research.

  • Mimi Sheller

    Professor and Dean of the Global School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

    Mimi Sheller is a leading scholar in mobilities research and Caribbean studies, with over 150 publications and 15 books. She has shaped the “new mobilities paradigm” and has held numerous prestigious fellowships and advisory roles worldwide.

Core Faculty

  •
    Michael Ann Devito

    Assistant Professor

    Michael Ann Devito is an Assistant Professor in Khoury College and Communication Studies at Northeastern. Her research is about human-centered AI, algorithms and tech justice.

  •
    Laura Forlano

    Professor

    Laura Forlano, a Fulbright award-winning scholar, is a Professor in Art + Design and Communication Studies at Northeastern. She researches design, tech, and inclusive futures.

  •
    Sarah Kanouse

    Associate Professor

    Sarah Kanouse is an interdisciplinary artist and writer examining the politics of space, landscape, and ecology.

  •
    Meg Heckman

    Associate Professor

    Award-winning journalist-scholar uncovering women's media history while championing local news innovation.

  •
    Jonathan Kaufman

    Director, Professor

    Jonathan Kaufman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and Director of Northeastern’s School of Journalism. He previously held senior roles at Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.

  • Zorana Matić

    Visiting Associate Teaching Professor

    Dr. Matić is a Visiting Associate Teaching Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Northeastern. Her work is nested at the intersections of design, human behavior, and health and well-being.

  • Sylke Rene Meyer

    Professor of Creative Practice Research

    Sylke Meyer is a writer, director, media artist, performer, educator, and co-founder of the artist group Studio206 that operates from Berlin, Los Angeles and Providence.

  •
    Eileen McGivney

    Assistant Professor

    Eileen studies how immersive technologies like virtual reality can bring transformative experiences to education that help students learn beyond what they can read in a textbook.

  •
    Celia Pearce

    Professor

    Celia Pearce is a Professor of Game Design at Northeastern University. Her research explores multiplayer games, virtual worlds, live-action roleplay and playable theater.

  •
    Carlos Sandoval Olascoaga

    Assistant Professor

    Carlos Sandoval Olascoaga is Assistant Professor of at the School of Architecture at Northeastern University.

  •
    Jody Santos

    Associate Teaching Professor

    Jody Santos is a human rights filmmaker and professor, she researches disability, climate and media justice. She founded the Disability Justice Project for the Global South.

  • David Tamés

    Teaching Professor

    David Tames is a Teaching Professor jointly in Art + Design and Communication Studies. His work explores documentary, interactive media and the evolution of cinematic storytelling.

  •
    Maria Elena Villar

    Professor and Chair

    Dr. Villar is a professor of Communication Studies, focusing on strategic communication for social change; science & health communication; and community-based research.

  •
    John P. Wihbey

    Professor, Director of AIMES Lab, Institute Co-Founder

    John P. Wihbey is professor in the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University.

Affiliated Faculty

  •
    Meryl Alper

    Associate Professor

    Dr. Meryl Alper is an Associate Professor in Communication Studies at Northeastern. Her research explores disability, digital media and how families and children engage with tech.

  •
    Rahul Bhargava

    Associate Professor

    Associate Professor in Journalism and Art + Design. He explores creative data storytelling, civic tech, and community empowerment through art and design.

  •
    Derek Curry

    Associate Professor

    Derek Curry is an Associate Professor in CAMD. His research-based art and games explore AI, algorithmic systems and how limited information shapes decision-making.

  •
    Smit Desai

    Assistant Professor

    Professor of Art + Design and Communication Studies. Conversational AI researcher exploring mental models to build technologies that support, rather than mimic, humans in need.

  • Sina Fazelpour

    Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science

    Sina Fazelpour is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science at Northeastern University. His research focuses on issues of justice, diversity, and reliability in data-driven and artificial intelligence technologies.

  •
    Jennifer Gradecki

    Associate Professor

    Associate Professor in Art + Design. Artist-theorist who investigates secretive and specialized socio-technical systems.

  •
    Dan Kennedy

    Professor

    Dan Kennedy, a professor of journalism in the College of Arts, Media and Design and a nationally known media commentator, is the author of three books about the future of news.

  •
    Christopher Le Dantec

    Professor

    Christopher is a Professor at Northeastern focused on Digital Civics. His study focuses on the intersection of human-centered computing, civic engagement and public technology.

  • Head and shoulders images of a brunette woman smiles at camera with blue blazer and white t-shire outside with a blurred yellow background.
    Amy Shirong Lu

    Associate Professor

    Amy holds joint appointments in CAMD and Bouvé College of Health Sciences. She leads the Health Tech Lab to study how digital tools, like XR and games, impact behavior and health.

  •
    Chris Martens

    Associate Professor

    Dr. Chris Martens is a computer scientist and computational media scholar in the field of digital games and narrative with a joint appointment in College of Arts, Media and Design and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Their research advances tools for building expressive and playful interactive experiences, building on insights from programming language design, procedural content generation, AI for narrative and social agents, and cognitive models of player- and user interactions.

  • Vance Ricks

    Associate Teaching Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science

    Vance Ricks is an associate teaching professor at Northeastern, holding joint appointments in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. His current research projects are on computer ethics pedagogy and (separately) on social robots.

  •
    Craig Robertson

    Professor

    Associate Professor at Northeastern University, media historian studying paperwork and surveillance. He researches how storage tech shapes information, labor, time and space.

  • Nora Suren

    Assistant Teaching Professor

    Nora Suren is an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern. Her current research projects involve digital platform governance, creator culture, media and gender, influencer activism, and political precarity.

  • Qi "Ryan" Wang

    College of Engineering

    Qi Wang is an Associate Professor in the College of Engineering. His research focuses include urban and social resilience; geo-social networking; coupled, human-natural systems; natural disaster response and evacuation; and urban computing.

  •
    Stephen Warren

    Associate Teaching Professor

    Dr. Warren's research explores media psychology, entertainment theory, sports communication, and audience behavior and habits.

  •
    Brooke Foucault Welles

    Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Professor

    Senior Associate Dean at CAMD and Communication Studies Professor. Her research merges network science and communication to explore power in online social systems.

  • Dan Zedek

    Professor of the Practice

    Dan Zedek is Professor of the Practice in the School of Journalism where he teaches media innovation, including data visualization, design, project management and visual editing.

Post-Doctoral Fellows

  •
    Morgan DiCesare

    Postdoctoral Teaching Associate

    Morgan DiCesare is a Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in communication studies. Her work underscores the importance of social relationships in retelling queer and trans histories.

  • Leah Hogan

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    Leah Horgan is a critical informatics scholar and designer whose work examines the intersection of technology, design, and urbanism. They have a background in media design, received their PhD in Informatics from the University of California, Irvine, and were a Computing Innovation Fellow at Northeastern University working in the Wylie Environmental Data Justice Lab on a community-based relational geography project.

  •
    Briana Trifiro

    Postdoctoral Teaching Associate

    A Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in the Communication Studies Department. Her research explores the psychological and political effects of social and digital media consumption.

  • milo trujillo

    Milo Trujilo

    Postdoctoral Researcher, CoMM Lab

    Milo Trujillo is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute. His research explores how platform design and social policy shape online behavior, including moderation, deplatforming, migration, and collaboration.

  • Yifan Xu

    Postdoctoral Researcher, Center for Transformative Media

    Yifan Wu is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Transformative Media. Her research explores the intersections of communication, media, emerging technologies, and society, with a focus on designing and deploying technologies that promote equitable and ethical outcomes.

Ph.D. Students

  • Ridwanullah Abdulhameed

    Ph.D. Student

    A Ph.D. student at Northeastern examining the influence of digital technologies on Nigerian democracy. Specializes in hate speech and political communication.

  • Dana Bullister

    Ph.D. Student

    Dana Bullister is a student in Interdisciplinary Design and Media at Northeastern University. She studies how design, data and tech can improve equity and efficiency in policymaking and public systems.

  • Filiz Durgun_photo

    Filiz Durgun

    Ph.D. Student

    Filiz is a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Design and Media at Northeastern University. She studies how visual and interactive design strategies can promote mental health awareness, reduce stigma, and foster understanding across diverse cultural contexts.

  • Sutanuka Jashu

    Ph.D. Student

    Sutanuka Jashu is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher from West Bengal, India, working at the nexus of art, technology, and cultural resilience. Her current practice integrates AI, adaptive systems, and speculative storytelling to critique digital colonialism, reimagine historical narratives, and explore ecological futures.

  • Jiaqi (Ella) Li

    Ph.D. Student

    Jiaqi (Ella) Li is a doctoral student in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern. She is advised by Herman Saksono and Michael Ann Devito. Her research focuses on the equitable and inclusive design and redesign of sociotechnical systems and tools to support the well-being of marginalized and at-risk populations. She is particularly interested in mixed methods approaches.

  • Image of Ph.D. student Caleb Okereke. He has short blonde hair and wears a teal silk shirt with a bow.

    Caleb Okereke

    Ph.D. Student

    Caleb Okereke is a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Design and Media at Northeastern University. His research examines how race operates as a governing technology within AI and digital media systems, tracing continuities between colonial regimes of labor and surveillance and contemporary platform infrastructures.

  • Veronica Rubinsztain

    Veronica Rubinsztain

    Ph.D. Student

    Veronica is a Northeastern Ph.D. student focused on equitable design for Autistic communities. She researches accessible design for Autistic users using critical and participatory frameworks.

  • Emma Stanley

    Ph.D. Student

    Emma Stanley is a Ph.D. candidate at North Carolina State University researching mobile and locative media. Her work explores how GPS technologies shape our experience and perception of physical space.

  • Monica Storss

    Ph.D. Student

    Monica is a poet, researcher-theorist, and technologist working with emerging media, primarily XR and AI.

  • Yukun Yang

    Ph.D. Student

    Yukun is a Ph.D. student at Northeastern, working in the CoMM Lab. He studies how online communication shapes and contests dominant ideologies around race and power.

Research Assistants

  • Kannan Karthikeyan (MS in Software Engineering)

    Software Developer

  • Arslan Parkar (MS in Information Systems)

    Software Developer

  • Johan Romero Rodriguez

    Qualitative Research Assistant

Partner Centers, Labs and Institutes:

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Past Research Assistants