Staff
Director
Dr. James E. Katz, Ph.D., is chair of the Department of Communication at Rutgers University where he also directs the Center for Mobile Communication Studies. His present focus is on how personal communication technologies, such as mobile phones and the Internet, affect social relationships and how cultural values influence usage patterns of these technologies. Currently he heads an NSF-sponsored project with the New Jersey Liberty Science Center museum to investigate ways to stimulate teens from urban environments to use mobile communication technology for informal science and health learning.
Professor Katz has devoted his career to exploring the relationship among the domains of science and technology, knowledge and information, and social processes and public policy. He has been granted two patents and has won several awards including the 2009 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Twentieth Century Communications History, which will take him to Italy, as well as Bellcore’s Distinguished Member of Staff Award, a Mellon Foundation Scholar award, and the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communication. He has won post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard and MIT. Katz is also the author of more than 50 refereed journal articles. His books, which include Magic in the Air: Mobile Communication and the Transformation of Social Life and Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement, Expression, have been translated into Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. His latest volume, published by MIT Press, is Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies.
At earlier stages of his career, Professor Katz headed the social science research unit at Bell Communications Research and was on the faculties of the University of Texas, Austin and Clarkson University. He has served as the chair of the Austin World Affairs Council and is currently the Vice President of NJ GASP. In terms of public outreach, Katz is frequently interviewed about his research by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and has appeared many times on network evening news programs and PBS NewsHour. He also serves on the boards of several organizations and professional journals.
For more media coverage on Dr. Katz, please check News Regarding the Center.
Research Associates
- Dr. Yi-Fan Chen [2004-]
Dr. Yi-Fan Chen
is an Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Her research interests focus on the impact of communication/ media technologies in everyday life. She completed her Ph.D. in Communication, Information and Library Studies, Graduate School – New Brunswick, at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. One of her duties to the center is maintaining the center’s website. [comments and suggestions for the website].
- Dr. Kalpana David [2004-]
Dr. Kalpana Thomas (nee David) has a Ph.D (2007) from SCILS. Her dissertation advisor was Professor James Katz and her dissertation committee consisted of Professors Nick Belkin, John Pavlik and Karen Cerulo (Department of Sociology, Rutgers). She has a B.S. in Physics (1999) and an M.A. in Communication (2001) from Madras University, India. She is interested in social consequences of communication technology, particularly mobile communication technology. She works for Mediavision, a New York – based broadcast media company as VP of Global Business Development.
- Dr. Katie Lever [2005-]
Dr. Katie Lever
is an Assistant Professor at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut. Her research interests include the social implications of technology use. More specifically, she is interested in how mobile technologies, such as digital music devices and mobile phones areused in public environments. She completed her Ph.D. at Rutgers
University.
- Dr. Patricia Mechael [2007-]
Dr. Patricia Mechael has been actively involved in the field of International
Health as a project manager and technical advisor for over 12 years with field experience in over 20 countries and a special focus on Africa. She has a Masters in International Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Hygiene and a PhD in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she specifically examined the role of mobile phones in relation to health in Egypt. She has worked on mHealth initiatives with a broad range of institutions, including the World Health Organization and the UK Partnership for Global Health. She is currently engaged as a long-term consultant managing the strategic integration of mobile phones to achieve the MDGs for health in ten countries in Africa for the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University in partnership with Ericsson.
- Dr. Satomi Sugiyama [2004-]
Dr. Satomi Sugiyama is currently an assistant professor at Franklin College Switzerland. Her research interests include communication technologies, fashion and communication, and intercultural communication. She is particularly interested in the influence of mobile communication technologies on social behaviour in a global context. She holds a doctorate in Communication from Rutgers University.
- Sinuk Kang [2005]
- Chia-Chien (Emily) Liang [2005]
- Shenwei Zhao [2004-2005]
Last Updated::
July 26, 2008
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