Executive Committee
The Executive Committee of the Legislative Assembly (LA) administers the policies of the Assembly and, between annual meetings of the LA, serves as the chief administrative authority of the Association.
Roseann M. Mandziuk
Texas State University
Roseann M. Mandziuk is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Rhetorical Studies from the University of Iowa, her M.S. in Communication from Illinois State University, and her B.A. in Speech and in English from Wayne State University. She has been a member of the faculty at Texas State University since 1987.
Roseann’s research focuses upon images of women, the rhetorical uses of history, and the construction of public memory in museums and monuments. She has co-authored a scholarly book about the rhetoric of Sojourner Truth, published numerous articles and book chapters examining historical and contemporary rhetoric, and served as Editor of Women’s Studies in Communication. She has received two Fulbright Scholar Awards, in India and in Poland, and has presented numerous international research lectures. She also was selected as an American Council on Education Fellow.
Roseann’s extensive professional service contributions include President of the Southern States Communication Association, two terms as Finance Board Chair and twelve years as a member of the Affirmative Action/Intercaucus Committee for the National Communication Association, and fifteen years as Chair of the Presidential Work Life Advisory Council on her campus. She has served on numerous editorial boards including Quarterly Journal of Speech and Women’s Studies in Communication, as well as regional and national association publication, nomination, and award committees. Her contributions have been recognized with national and regional professional association awards for teaching, mentoring, and research, including the 2014 Michael M. Osborn Teacher-Scholar Award from SSCA and the 2017 Francine Merritt Award for Contributions to Women in Communication from the NCA Women’s Caucus.
✉ Email: rm07@txstate.edu
Walid Afifi
University of California-Santa Barbara
Walid Afifi (PhD, University of Arizona, 1995) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB), where is also currently a member of the Campus Climate Council and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies. Prior to his return to UCSB, he served as department Chair at the University of Iowa (2012-2015), where he was also a member of the Human Rights Commission. He is an author on over 80 journal articles, chapters, or books, and was recently inducted as a Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA). His service to NCA has been vast and long-lasting, including Chair of the Interpersonal Communication division (2004), and a member of the Units Task Force (2009-2011), the NCA Bylaws Task Force (2011-2012), and the Task Force on Inclusivity in the Discipline (2014-2017). Most recently, he was Chair of the Task force on the NCA Center for Community, Collaboration and Change (2017-2019). He is an editorial board member on several leading journals and served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Personal Relationships, and Human Communication Research. He is also currently serving the discipline as a member of the ICA Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Access committee.
✉ Email: w-afifi@ucsb.edu
Marnel Niles Goins
Marymount University
Marnel Niles Goins is Dean of the College of Sciences and Humanities and Professor of Communication at Marymount University. She earned her Ph.D. from Howard University in Washington, DC. Prior to her transition to Marymount, she served as Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Communication at California State University, Fresno, where she worked for 12 years. She taught courses in Small Group Communication and Organizational Communication and has a special interest in gender and racial dynamics in organizational settings. Marnel has numerous publications, including serving as first editor of the recently published, The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Communication. Marnel is 2nd Vice President of the Western States Communication Association, Immediate Past President of the Western States Communication Association, and a Past President of the Organization for Research on Women and Communication. She also served NCA as a member of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Task Force, chair and member of the Finance Committee, and chair of the Black Caucus.
✉ Email: mngoins@marymount.edu
David T. McMahan
Missouri Western State University
David T. McMahan is a Professor of Communication at Missouri Western State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2001, with research focusing on the social aspects of media and technology, personal relationships, and rhetorical criticism. He has published over ten books, including Internet Communication, Introduction to Communication Criticism, Relational Communication, The Basics of Communication, and the bestselling Communication in Everyday Life series. His research and other works have been published in numerous academic journals and anthologies, and he was named a Centennial Scholar by the Eastern Communication Association. His extensive record of service includes President of the Central States Communication Association, Editor of the Iowa Journal of Communication, and Consulting Editor of the Journal of Communication Pedagogy, along with membership and activity on a vast number of academic committees, executive boards, and editorial boards. He has taught courses which span the discipline of communication and has received several awards for his work in the classroom.
✉ Email: mcmahan@missouriwestern.edu
- IDEA Council Chair: Cerise L. Glenn (Bio coming soon)
Rachel Alicia Griffin
University of Utah
Rachel Alicia Griffin, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Race and Communication in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. As a critical/cultural scholar her research interests span Black feminist thought, critical race theory, sexual violence, and the social institutions of sport, media, education, and the U.S. presidency. From 2012 to 2015 Dr. Griffin was awarded the Judge William Holmes Cook Professorship by the Office of the Associate Chancellor for Institutional Diversity at SIU and in 2013 she was awarded the College of Liberal Arts Early Career Faculty Excellence Award at SIU. She was also awarded the 2015 Scholar-Activist Award by the Critical Cultural Studies Division and the 2015 Rex Crawley Outstanding Service Award by the African American Communication Division and Black Caucus via the National Communication Association. Most recently, Dr. Griffin earned WSCA’s 2018 Exemplary Teacher Award and a 2018-2019 Tanner Humanities Center Fellowship at the University of Utah. Dr. Griffin has also published in several journals including Women’s Studies in Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, The Howard Journal of Communications, the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, and Communication, Culture, & Critique.
Additionally, she is the co-editor of Adventures in Shondaland: Identity Politics and the Power of Representation (Rutgers University Press, 2018). Her pending research project is a co-authored monograph titled Marginalization and the Modern Presidency: Presidential Communication, Identity Politics, and the Battle for “Real’ America. Exceptionally committed to sustaining synergy between research and service, Dr. Griffin has delivered well over 100 anti-sexual violence and Inclusive Excellence presentations on campuses and at conferences nationally and internationally. She especially prizes having spoken for U.S. state coalitions against sexual violence in North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Maryland, California, Illinois, and Washington alongside several opportunities to advocate against sexual violence in Canada.
Devika Chawla
Ohio University
Devika Chawla is Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University and Affiliated faculty with Interdisciplinary Arts, Women’s and Gender Studies, Communication and Development, International Development Studies, and Southeast Asian Studies. She received her B.A. in English Literature and Literary Criticism from the University of Delhi. She holds two M.A. degrees; the first in English Print Journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication in New Delhi, and the second in Speech Communication and Dramatic Arts from Central Michigan University. She received her Ph.D. in Communication Studies with related emphases in Family Studies and Social Anthropology from Purdue University.
Dr. Chawla’s research focuses on communicative, performative, and narrative approaches to studying family, home, and its relationship to social identity. Specifically, she is interested in understanding how human beings transform themselves in the relationships that surround them, and the resources – social, political, economic – that are available to them. Most of her field research has taken place in the context of marriage and family life in contemporary urban north India. Dr. Chawla is the author of Home, Uprooted: Oral Histories of India’s Partition (Fordham University Press), which won the 2015 Outstanding Book Award from the Ethnography Division and the International and Intercultural Division of the National Communication Association. She has published three other co-authored and edited books and over 55 essays in peer-reviewed journals and anthologies. She is Senior Associate Editor (south Asia and southeast Asia) for the Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Communication. From 2019 to 2021, she served as editor-in-chief of Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, a journal published by the University of California Press.
Charles Morris III
Syracuse University
Charles E. Morris III is Professor and Chairperson in the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies, and Affiliated Faculty in LGBT Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies, at Syracuse University. He earned his B.A. at Boston College and his M.A. and Ph.D from Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Morris describes himself as a queer rhetorical/historical critic whose research and teaching interests are focused on rhetorical criticism, archives and public memory, and LGBTQ histories, cultures, and politics. Dr. Morris is Co-Founding-Editor-in-Chief of QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking (Michigan State University Press). His edited and co-edited books include An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk's Speeches and Writings, Queering Public Address: Sexualities in American Historical Discourse, Remembering the AIDS Quilt, and Readings on the Rhetoric of Social Protest. His essays and guest edited special issues and forums have appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, Text & Performance Quarterly, and Women’s Studies in Communication among others.
Dr. Morris has twice received NCA’s Golden Monograph Award for article of the year, as well as NCA's Karl Wallace Memorial Award for early career achievement and the Randy Majors Award for Distinguished Scholarship in LGBTQ Studies. In 2016, Dr. Morris was named a Distinguished Scholar by the Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division of the National Communication Association.
Vinita Agarwal
Salisbury University
Vinita Agarwal is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Salisbury University (SU), Maryland. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University, M.A. from University of Illinois at Chicago, M.A. from the Mass Communication Research Center, India, and her B.Sc. in Physics (Hons.) from Miranda House, India.
Dr. Agarwal’s research theorizes ecologically aware, relational, and dialogic understandings of whole-person care in health promotion, disease prevention, and chronic illness management. Her monograph, Medical Humanism, Chronic Illness, and the Body in Pain: An Ecology of Wholeness (Lexington Press), integrates her long-term meditation practice, native knowledge, and professional training in Vipassana meditation and Ayurvedic diet and wellness principles to propose an ecological model of wholeness for the therapeutic relationship and healing communication approaches of traditional global medical systems and the biomedical model.
Her research has been published in journals such as Health Communication, the Journal of Patient Experience, Qualitative Health Research, Journal of Advanced Nursing, and the Journal of American College Health. She is associate editor at Frontiers in Communication (Health Communication) and has received top five paper recognition from the Applied Communication Division, NCA and at the Eastern and Central regional conventions. Her work has been recognized by the Excellence in Scholarship award, the Building Research Excellence grant (SU), and the University System of Maryland Women’s Foundation Faculty Research award. Her commitment to service includes positions such as director for the foundational year of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities and as chair of the Feminist and Gender Studies division, NCA.
Lisa A. Flores
University of Colorado, Boulder
Lisa A. Flores is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado. Her research and teaching interests lie in rhetoric, critical race studies, and gender/queer studies. Her most recent work examines historic narratives of immigrants and immigration, mapping an argument of race making, particular at the intersections of nation, citizenship, and labor. Her book, Deportable and Disposable: Public Rhetoric and the Making of “Illegality,” forthcoming from the Pennsylvania State University Press, theorizes rhetorical racialization as it turns to the intersecting discourses of deportability and disposability in historic narratives of Mexican migration. She is the recipient of the Douglas W. Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar Award from the National Communication Association (NCA), as well as the Distinguished Scholar Award from both the Rhetorical & Communication Theory Division of NCA and the Critical & Cultural Studies Division of NCA. She has twice received the Rose B. Johnson article of the year award from the Southern States Communication Association. In addition, she is also the recipient of the Latino/a Scholar of the year award from NCA’s Latina/Latino Communication Studies Division, the Young Scholar Activist Award from the same division, the New Investigator Award from NCA’s Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division, and the Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award, from NCA. She has published in Text and Performance Quarterly, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech. An advocate of disciplinary service, Lisa is Past President of the Western States Communication Association and the Organization for Research on Women and Communication, a member of the Board of Directors of the Rhetoric Society of America, and an active member the National Communication Association.
Jimmie Manning
University of Nevada, Reno
Jimmie Manning is Professor and Chair of Communication Studies in the School of Social Research and Justice Studies at the University of Nevada. He earned bachelor’s degrees in Speech/Communication, Dramatic Arts, and English from Emporia State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Kansas.
Dr. Manning’s research focuses on relational and family communication. This work spans multiple contexts to understand how individuals, couples, families, organizations, and cultural institutions attempt to define, support, control, limit, encourage, or otherwise negotiate relationships. He explores these ideas through three contexts: relational discourses, especially those related to family, identity, love, gender, and/or sexuality; relational efficacy in health and organizational contexts; and digitally-mediated communication. This work has resulted in over 100 publications in outlets including Communication Monographs, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, and Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, among others.
Dr. Manning has received several research, teaching, and service awards including the NCA Kibler and Ecroyd awards, the International Association for Relationship Research Teaching Award, the Warren and Kay awards from the Central States Communication Association, and the Outreach and Gender Studies Scholar awards from the Southern States Communication Association, among others. He comes to the NCA finance committee with extensive service at the regional, national, and international levels..
Rich West
Emerson College
Rich received his Ph.D. in Interpersonal Communication from Ohio University and his M.A. in Communication Education from Illinois State University. He is currently Professor of Communication Studies at Emerson College, where he has served as a Dean, Director, and Department Chair.
Rich is a former President of both the National Communication Association and the Eastern Communication Association. He has chaired or served on over 60 NCA/ECA committees. He is also a recipient of ECA's Distinguished Service Award as well as being recognized as both an ECA Distinguished Research Fellow and Distinguished Teaching Fellow. Rich is currently on the Academic Board of Directors for the Global Listening Centre, based in London, and sits on several editorial boards.
Rich is the co-author/editor of 10 books that have been published in 7 languages. Two of his anthologies have received NCA's Outstanding Book Award in Family Communication ("The Family Communication Sourcebook") and in Applied Communication ("Routledge Handbook of Communication and Bullying").
Rich has received a number of accolades over the years. He was awarded Emerson's prestigious Norman and Irma Mann Stearns distinction and recognized as Distinguished Faculty. In addition, Illinois State University and Ohio University named him "Outstanding Alum in Communication"; ISU also recognized him for "Distinction in Forensics" and "Outstanding Graduate in Teacher Education."
Rich is an award-winning gardener and his 120-year-old home in Maine has been featured in dozens of media outlets.
Shari Miles-Cohen
National Communication Association
Dr. Shari E. Miles-Cohen joined NCA as Executive Director in January 2022.
Having previously served as Senior Director of the Human Rights Team at the American Psychological Association, Dr. Miles-Cohen brings considerable academic, administrative, and executive leadership experience to this position. Prior to APA, Miles-Cohen led the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Union Institute Center for Women, the African American Women’s Institute at Howard University, and the Women’s Research & Education Institute, and was a Congressional Fellow.
Miles-Cohen holds a Ph.D. in Personality Psychology from Howard University.
Legislative Assembly
Councils and Committees
- Anjuli J. Brekke, University of Washington (Asian/Pacific American Caucus)
- James Cherney, University of Nevada, Reno (Disability Issues Caucus)
- Elizabeth F. Desnoyers-Colas, Georgia Southern University (Women's Caucus)
- Jaime Guzmán, California State University, Los Angeles (La Raza Caucus)
- Deryl Johnson, Kutztown University (Caucus on GLBTQ Concerns)
- Natonya Listach, University of Memphis (Black Caucus)
- Lisa Flores, University of Colorado, Boulder
- Rich West, Emerson College
- Nicholas Bowman, Texas Tech University
- Jeffrey Child, Kent State University
- Rachel Dubrofsky, University of South Florida
- Aisha Durham, University of South Florida
- Marina Levina, University of Memphis
- Todd L. Sandel, University of Macau
- Iccha Basnyat, James Madison University
- Christopher Carpenter, Western Illinois University
- Richard Craig, George Mason University
- Shinsuke Eguchi, University of New Mexico
- Paul Schrodt, Texas Christian University
- Benjamin Warner, University of Missouri
- Kristen Blinne, SUNY Oneonta
- Andy Kai-chun Chuang, La Guardia Community College
- Eddah Mutua, St. Cloud State University
- Sandy Pensoneau-Conway, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
- Chelsea A.H. Stow, University of Denver
- Andrea Vickery SUNY, Oswego
Governance Committees
- Jordan Tyler Atkinson, Missouri Western State University
- Caleb T. Carr
- Ariadne A. Gonzalez, Texas A&M International University
- Christina M. Knopf, State University of New York, Cortland
- Goyland Mertell Williams, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Walid Afifi, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Fatima Zahrae Chrifi Alaoui, San Francisco State University
- Haneen Ghabra, Kuwait University
- Tina M. Harris, Louisiana State University
- Roseann M. Mandziuk, Texas State University
- Joseph Mazer, University of Tennessee
- Ali Na, Queen's University
- Marnel Niles Goins, Marymount University
- Narissra Punyanunt-Carter, Texas Tech University
- Tara Reed, Tarrant County College South
- David M. Rhea, Governors State University
- Mark L. Finney, Emory & Henry College
- Kurt Lindemann, San Diego State University
- Robert Mejia, A New Way of Life Reentry Project
- David C. Oh, Ramapo College
- Amy Aldridge Sanford, Middle Tennessee State University
- Michelle T. Violanti, University of Tennessee
Please refer to the Public Statements page for more information about submission procedures and requirements.