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Noshir Contractor, renowned professor in the Department of Communication Studies in the School of Communication, will become the president of the International Communication Association (ICA) effective May 2022, the organization announced on October 16. Contractor is a foremost researcher of network science, computational social science, and web science, specifically examining how social and knowledge networks form in business, scientific communities, healthcare, and space travel. He is the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science, the School of Communication, and the Kellogg School of Management and director of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Research Group.

In his first public event as dean, E. Patrick Johnson screened his award-winning 2019 documentary, Making Sweet Tea, and took part in a live virtual discussion with Miriam Petty, film historian and associate professor in the Department of Radio/Television/Film. The October 1 event was open to alumni and members of the School of Communication community.

An invitation to teach in the School of Communication is a coveted honor, yet for post-doctoral fellows, PhD candidates, and early career faculty, the process can be fraught with questions about resources, pathways to advancement, and research funding. To address these concerns, the School will launch this fall CommFutures: The SoC Mentoring and Development Initiative, a program of conversations and workshops designed to provide guidance and support to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty just beginning in their fields.

The new Center for Latinx Digital Media launches this fall with an aim to promote and research digital media in Latinx and Latin American communities, all while bringing together students, scholars and practitioners across the world.

School of Communication Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Education Madhu Reddy is a co-recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health ALACRITY Center grant. It will fund three major projects with area medical centers to explore digital mental health interventions for young people, pregnant women, and older adults.

E. Patrick Johnson has achieved many firsts in his lifetime. He was a first-generation college student and the first African American from his hometown to receive a doctorate. He was the first African American to be hired and tenured in Northwestern’s Department of Performance Studies, and the first to be given a named professorship in the School of Communication (SoC). Today, he was named the next dean of SoC, the first African American to hold that role. He will take over as dean Aug. 1, succeeding Barbara O’Keefe.

Northwestern School of Communication professor E. Patrick Johnson will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the prestigious honors society that recognizes exemplary contributions to the pursuit of knowledge, discourse, and advancing the common good. He was among 276 inductees in the 2020 class working across a range of disciplines, eight of whom are from Northwestern.

At Thursday’s daily White House briefing on the coronavirus crisis, President Donald Trump mused that scientists should test the internal use of ultraviolet light or disinfectants like bleach to treat COVID-19 in patients. Sound advice?

“No,” says Bonnie Martin-Harris, the Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Northwestern University School of Communication’s associate dean for faculty affairs. “Cleaning agents are caustic to the mucosa—the lining of the mouth, the throat, the esophagus, the stomach—and in fact can destroy the tissues so much so that, one, the person could die.”

Two dynamic programs in the School of Communication were ranked last month in the top five in their categories in US News and World Report’s latest evaluation of graduate learning.

The Doctor of Audiology (AuD) program is now occupying the No. 4 slot on the list of top audiology programs, up from No. 7, and the MS in Speech, Language, and Learning program placed at No. 2, up from No. 5, among speech-language pathology programs. Both programs are housed in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.