Faculty and Graduate Students

Faculty:

Dr. Steven R. Corman (Ph.D., University of Illinois):

Dr. Corman is the Director of the Consortium for Strategic Communication in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. He research studies the relationship of talk and written communication to organizational networks and activity systems. In the years following the 9/11 attacks, Corman served as a consultant for the Department of Defense on communication networks and counter-terrorism. In 2005 he served as a member of a scientific panel on counterterrorism for U. S. Special Operations Command. Corman is also Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Crawdad Technologies LLC, Chair of the Organizational Communication Division of the International Communication Association, and an Associate Editor of the journal Human Communication Research.

Dr. H.L. (Bud) Goodall, Jr. (Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University):

Dr. Goodall is a Professor and the Director of the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication: He is an organizational ethnographer with an academic background in rhetoric and interpersonal communication. His most recent research and teaching is in “communication, terrorism, and national security,” with particular emphases on the interplays of communication theories and research on the development of strategic communication, political narratives, leadership, espionage, and public diplomacy/propaganda campaigns during the Cold War and the current Global War on Terror.

Dr. Kelly McDonald ( Ph.D., University of Kansas):

Dr. McDonald is Assistant Professor and Director of Forensics for ASU’s nationally recognized competitive speech and debate program. His principal research interests are political communication and public argument. Recent work looks at issues of participation and voter education from political debates, visual argument and the impact of the images of torture from Abu Graib and the role / import of political cartoons in the post 9/11 era. His interests focus at the intersections of public deliberation and public making, enhancing the mechanisms of deliberative democracy, and the use of forensic pedagogy to improve the learning outcomes for K-12 and University students. McDonald serves as an exofficio member of the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s Speech & Theatre Advisory Committee, Treasurer for the Cross Examination Debate Association and Research Director for the National Forensic Association. He serves as a board member on the Western Journal of Communication and recently was co-program planner and associate editor for the National Communication Association / American Forensic Association’s Alta Summer Conference on Argumentation.

He is a principal in The Hugh Down’s School of Human Communication’s Consortium for Strategic Communication.

Dr. Robert D. McPhee (Ph.D., Michigan State University):

Dr. McPhee is a Professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University, specializing in communication theory and methods and in organizational communication. His interest in interdependence and coordination processes involves disaster relief and security organizations; his focus on the communicative constitution of organizations has led to interest in the constitution of terrorist organizations as well as multinational alliances against terrorism. He has served as Chair of the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association, as Associate Editor of Human Communication Research, and as Book Review Editor of Communication Theory. Among his other research interests are organizational hierarchies, organizational knowledge, and structuration theory.

Dr. Angela Trethewey (Ph.D., Purdue University):

Dr. Trethewey is an associate professor and assistant director of the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. Her research focuses on the intersections of social discourses of power, organizational communication, and employee identity. Her recent project on "organizing intelligence" offers a framework for understanding a new model of leadership in a post 9/11 world that centers on managing identities, knowledge and performance in ways that blur the lines between state sponsored espionage and routine corporate practice.

Dr. Mark Woodward (Ph.D., University of Illinois):

Dr. Woodward is an associate professor of Religious Studies. His research specializations include religion, modernity and religion and politics. He has conducted ethnographic research on Islam in Indonesia (Java, Sulawesi and Sumatra) Islam, Buddhism and the state in Singapore and on Theravada Buddhism, sacred space and sacral kingship in Burma. He has received grants from the Fulbright Program, the Smithsonian Institution, The Social Science Research Council and the United States Indonesia Society, and recently completed a lecture tour of Muslim and Christian Universities in Indonesia in which he discussed the origins of and potential solutions to religiously based conflict. For the past three years the majority of his research efforts have focused on the social and theological roots of communal violence and terrorism. He is the author 5 books and over fifty articles on Islam.

Graduate Students:

Kris Acheson:

As a linguist and an intercultural communication scholar, Kris is interested in the relationships between language, culture, and communication. These relationships, often overlooked or oversimplified by policy makers, are pivotal to the success or failure of U.S. foreign policy, and as such they are the primary focus of her work at the CSC.

Ian Derk:

From interests in rhetoric, intercultural communication, and the Arabic language and culture, Ian is interested in how militants construct arguments based on their cultural history. His work within the CSC focuses on additions of Islamic stories within our counter-narrative strategy, researching relevant religious concepts, and limited translation work. Currently, he is studying Islamic argumentation styles to enhance the arrangement of our narratives.

Aaron Hess:

Through research in rhetoric and new media theory, Aaron is interested in the means by which narrative strategies are used and disseminated through the internet and other new media forums to persuade new recruits into joining terrorist organizations. Additionally, his research analyzes the construction and representation of the terrorist identity in American news broadcasting and governmental leadership.

Colin Hesse:

As a self-described religious fundamentalist, Colin is interested in analyzing through quantitative methods and computerized textual analysis the various similarities and differences between fundamentalist groups. Militant Islam is not a new phenomenon, and it is important to use the lessons of the past and of other groups to produce targeted messages and interventional procedures.

Zach Justus:

Zach’s involvement in the Consortium for Strategic Communication stems from his extensive interest in terrorism, national security and public policy in general. He contributes a strong rhetorical perspective to the projects in the CSC. Offering this perspective has been a fulfilling exercise in taking his academic training and applying it to pressing social problems.

Jill Schiefelbein:

Jill is a second year M.A. student focusing on computer-mediated communication. Her interests in counterterrorism lie in the "virtual jihad" movement and in media and public relations strategies.

Christina M. Smith:

Christina’s research foci encompass rhetoric and media studies. Specifically, she is interested in the political rhetoric surrounding issues of terrorism and national security and its representation in U.S. and foreign media. Additionally, she is also interested in mediated representations of Arab-Americans in the post-9/11 U.S. media.