Graduate Profiles | Master of Arts

Jasleen Bains

BA, International Studies, Simon Fraser University

Supervisor: Karrmen Crey

Jasleen Bains is currently a graduate fellow with SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative. Her research examines the media’s role in characterizing racialized populations within Canada, and how this characterization plays a role in the implementation of community-based educational spaces. Her work focuses on the City of Surrey, home to one of Canada’s largest South Asian diasporic communities. As a member of the South Asian community and a resident of Surrey, Jasleen is working from a standpoint of situated knowledge.   

Bronwen Barnett

BA, Sociology and Communication, Simon Fraser University

Supervisor: Enda Brophy

Bronwen completed the Sociology and Communication Joint Major Program to earn her Bachelor of Arts at Simon Fraser University in 2017. Having worked in the labour movement since then in a communications role, her research interests include: how trade unions communicate, postmodernism and the cultural turn, communicative action as well as the discourses of capitalism and the production of common sense.

Hannah Block | LinkedIn

BA, Communication, Simon Fraser University

Supervisor: Gary McCarron

With a Bachelor of Arts (Distinction), majoring in Communication with a double minor in Print and Digital Publishing, and Curriculum and Instruction, Hannah’s research interests include the adoption of communication and information technologies. With agency experience as a PR and Digital Account Coordinator, and as a past member of Canada‘s national rock climbing team, Hannah brings a uniquely informed approach to her Graduate studies.

Thomas Dickson

BA, Rhetoric & Communication, University of Winnipeg

Supervisor: Zoë Druick

Thomas Dickson completed his Bachelor of Arts at The University of Winnipeg in June 2020, where he majored in Rhetoric & Communication and minored in Political Science and Theatre & Film. His research interests include cultural policy and governance, film history, political theory, online discourses and public spheres, and issues related to free speech.

Catherine Dubé | Twitter

BA, Communication & Cultural Studies, Concordia University

Supervisor: Sun-ha Hong

I am interested in studying the history of media, gender, and capitalism; affect theory; surveillance technology; postmodernism; media archaeology; and critical theory. My current research considers late-19th century British beauty culture through the lens of governmentality.

Mina Einifar

BA, Communication, University of Tehran

MA, Media & Cultural Studies, University of Tehran 

Supervisor: Ahmed Al-Rawi

I am mostly interested in social media, digital culture and online feminism. I have studied how Iranian women use Instagram for self-expression in my previous MA thesis and for my next project I will be working on feminist activities of Iranian social media users. Since I have a background in Media and cultural studies, I am very interested to work on the intersection of everyday life and the digital world. I also enjoy exploring issues like digital platforms, algorithms, online surveillance and users’ privacy.  

Mozhgan Fazli

BA, Public Relation, Allameh Tabatabaee University

MA, Communication, University of Tehran

Supervisor: Daniel Ahadi

I am interested in studying masculinity, gender history, media representation, and cinema. My current research focus on hegemonic masculinity and how it is challenged in media.

Valerie Franklin

BA, English, University of the Fraser Valley

Supervisor: Gary McCarron

Valerie Franklin weaves her interests in visual art, science, and storytelling into her communication studies. Her MA thesis research focuses on visual rhetoric in science journalism, particularly in regards to post-truth phenomena and constructed narratives of fear. In her spare time, Valerie works on graphic literature projects as a writer and illustrator. She lives with her partner and two cats in Abbotsford.

Jamie Hoholuk

BJ, Journalism & Communications, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Supervisor: Stuart Poyntz

Jamie obtained her Bachelor of Journalism at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in 2019. Prior to joining the program, Jamie has published and presented research focusing on digital ethics and youth voice respectively, and written a course on media and diversity. Her current research focuses on media literacy, youth, and sex education pedagogies. 

Kayli Jamieson | Twitter

BA (Honours), Communication, SFU

Supervisor: Ahmed Al-Rawi

Kayli’s research interests focus upon networked activism, news media analysis, disinformation, & East-Asia studies. Her thesis research will analyze how China is reported upon and framed across the political spectrum in news outlets in Canada and the U.S. Kayli has also been working for the Burnaby Public Library for over six years, and loves to discuss books.

Camille Jasinski

BA, Communication, Simon Fraser University

Co-Supervisors: Richard Gruneau & Andrew Feenberg 

Research interests: Frankfurt School Critical Theory, ideology and ideologies of oppression, surveillance culture, philosophy and decolonization theory. 

Catherine Jeffery

BA (Honours), Gender, Sexuality, Feminism & Social Justice, McGill University

Supervisor: Enda Brophy

Drawing from my interdisciplinary background, my work is grounded in a variety of theoretical traditions and seeks to critically examine the contemporary landscape of financial capitalism. My main research project engages with critical data studies and social imaginations, where I am exploring how robo-advising apps sustain certain ideologies of financial markets, paying specific attention to the ways that data is presented to the user.

Lauren Knight  | Personal Website

BA, Media Production, Ryerson University 

Supervisor: Milena Droumeva

My research aims to bridge my Anishinaabe heritage with the scholarly field of acoustic ecology. Taking special interest in the use of noise-cancelling technologies, I aim to explore how listening has become a technologically mediated process in which sonic control and malleability are prioritized. Considering this relationship within the specific context of urban environments, I compare Indigenous (Anishinaabe in particular) practices of listening to a colonial perspective on noise and noise-cancellation.

Xiaosu Li

BA, Journalism, Huazhong University of Science & Technology

Supervisor: Ellen Balka

Research areas: science and technology studies, digital tracking platforms, security and health studies, biopolitics, health surveillance, sociology and photography.

Firoz Mahmud

MA, English, Jahangirnagar University

Supervisor: Kirsten McAllister

I have close to 30 years of extensive background working in the humanitarian and non-profit sectors. I also served as a faculty member in the Department of English at King Khalid University – one of the largest public universities in the Middle East (2003-2009). Currently, I have been working with the Canadian Red Cross, for the past 11 years as the Provincial Manager, Planned Giving. I am deeply interested in humanitarian communication and my proposed research project revolves around the Rohingya crisis and the representation of the refugees by major humanitarian organizations in their public communication. 

Rita Odey | Personal Website

BA, Mass Communication, Covenant University 

Supervisor: Martin Laba

Rita Odey is a second year MA student and a culture writer. Her academic and professional background is in advertising and marketing communication. Her research explores the recent global interest in Nollywood memes and its impact on the viewership of Nigerian cinema. Her other research interests include digital marketing communication, Black cultural appropriation, Anti-Black Racism and Black hair politics. Admitting that academic language can unintentionally create an echo chamber, she uses her writing to deconstruct complex ideas to non-academic circles.

Ryland Shaw

BS, Strategic Communication, University of Utah

Supervisor: Shane Gunster

I will be researching the capability of documentary and fiction films to influence public opinion on climate change, with the long-term goal of providing media industry professionals a practical training framework for messaging effectiveness. I have a personal love for all things filmmaking and have an extensive background in environmental documentary production.

Maria Sommers

BA, Communication, SFU

Co-Supervisors: Aleena Chia & Milena Droumeva

My thesis research is focused on the implications of immersive advertising and the extraction of affective and aspirational labour in free-to-play fashion styling and interior design mobile phone games. My current research interests include critical game studies, digital labour, and feminist political economy.

Melanie Vidakis

BA, Communication and Cultural Studies, Concordia University

Supervisor: Katherine Reilly

Melanie received her bachelor’s degree with distinction in June 2021 from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She majored in Communication and Cultural studies. Her research at the undergraduate level was on popular communication platforms and the data generated from them; the impact and creation of algorithms; and culture jamming in digital spheres. Currently focused on data studies, she is interested in making data practices more inclusive. When not occupied with various realms of the internet, she enjoys sketching, poetry, and hiking.

Julia Werkman | Twitter

BA (Honours), Political Science, University of Alberta

Supervisor: Cait McKinney

My research area is primarily focused on feminist media theory and sexuality studies, specifically applying these two fields to topics such as digital intimacy and online dating.