Meet our Newest Faculty Members

In addition to Professor Travis Dixon, the Department of Communication Studies is thrilled to have three more outstanding professors join our team. Charles Goodwin: Professor Charles Goodwin received his Ph.D. from the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1977, and a Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Lingöping University in 2009.  His interests include video analysis of talk-in-interaction (including study of the discursive practices used by hearers and speakers to construct utterances, stories, and other forms of talk), grammar in context, cognition in the lived social world, gesture, gaze and embodiment as interactively organized social practices, aphasia in discourse, language in the professions and the ethnography of science. Link to the full bio. Lynn Vavreck: Lynn Vavreck is Associate Professor of Political Science and Communication Studies at UCLA, and is Director of the Center for the Study of Campaigns. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Rochester in 1997. In addition to UCLA, Dr. Vavreck has worked at the White House, Dartmouth College, and Princeton University. Her book, The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns (Princeton University Press, 2009) has been described as “path-breaking” and “required reading” for anyone interested in presidential campaigns and elections.  In addition to The Message Matters, Dr. Vavreck’s work can also be read in Campaign Reform: Insights and Evidence (with Larry M. Bartels, Michigan University Press 2000), the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Political Analysis, and in various edited volumes. Link to the full bio.Trina Wright-Dixon: Professor Wright-Dixon received her Ph.D. from Howard University, and her MA and BA from California State University of Fullerton.  Dr. Wright-Dixon studies the interrelated discourses of gender, race and class in work.  Prof. Wright-Dixon seeks to understand the behaviors and challenges of non-traditional roles/careers.  Her interests include areas of resistance experienced in organizations as well as communication with an emphasis on organizational socialization.  Her recent projects include explorations of work and the negotiation of administrative support roles among women of color, organizational roles, and the feminist constructions of work ethics ascribed in the workplace.  Link to the full bio.