Current committee, as of May 2023
Chair: Saumava Mitra (2023-25)
Email: saumava.mitra@dcu.ie
Saumava Mitra is an Assistant Professor at the School of Communications of Dublin City University. Mitra researches on various issues of media’s – particularly visual media’s – relationship with violent and social conflicts. He is interested in both the questions of how socio-economic and political inequities are inscribed into the photographic images of conflicts as well as the effects of these inequities on the lives and livelihoods of those who produce these images. His current research project involves exploring the gendered and geopolitical inequities inherent in photographs of – and acts surrounding photographing – places and peoples embroiled in various violent and social conflicts, based on the perspectives and practices of photojournalists and documentary photographers with ties to the Global South. Mitra’s previous research has focused on issues surrounding safety of journalists and news-workers, and the local-international interactions inherent in foreign news production in conflict-affected contexts. Mitra received his PhD at University of Western Ontario in Canada. His doctoral thesis focused on the working conditions of, and images of Afghanistan produced by, Afghan photojournalists who cater to international audiences. Prior to joining DCU, he worked in journalism, communications and in academia in South Asia, East Africa, North and Central Americas and Western Europe.
Vice-Chair: Shahira Fahmy (2023-25)
E-mail: Shahira.fahmy@aucegypt.edu
Shahira S. Fahmy (PhD, Missouri School of Journalism) is an award-winning international Fulbright scholar and full professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Cairo. She is affiliated with the University of Arizona, where she served as a tenured faculty for more than a decade. Fahmy was ranked the top social scientist in journalism and media in the Arab League and Africa, according to AD Scientific Index 2023. Her research focuses on visual communication and peace journalism, most recently analyzing how emerging technologies are transforming the relationship between media and terrorism in society. She has published over 100 refereed journal articles and book chapters, in addition to four books. Fahmy has won several international research awards, including the National Communication Association (NCA) book award. She has given several keynote speeches and her global engagements include professional visits to more than 30 countries. Fahmy received two Fulbright awards to work with the NATO Strategic Communication Center of Excellence in the Baltics and the United Nations in Africa. She edited multiple journal special issues and for more than a decade she served as the associate editor of the Journal of Communication and Mass Communication & Society.
Secretary: T.J. Thomson (2022-24)
Email: t.j.thomson@rmit.edu.au
Dr T.J. Thomson MAIATSIS AFHEA (Indigenous) FQA SFHEA is a senior lecturer in visual communication and media and an ARC DECRA Fellow at RMIT University. He is the author of To See and Be Seen: The Environments, Interactions, and Identities Behind News Images (winner of the NCA 2020 Diane S. Hope Book of the Year Award) and is the 2019 Anne Dunn Scholar of the Year (jointly bestowed by the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia and the Australia and New Zealand Communication Association). T.J.’s research focuses on how visual journalism is produced—by whom, in what environments, through which processes, and with what results. He also examines visual self-representation on social media and everyday image-making. His approach is based on a combination of ethnography (both physical and virtual), interviews, textual analysis, and digital media methods. T.J. is committed to not only studying visual communication phenomena but also working to increase the visibility, innovation, and quality of how research findings are presented, accessed, and understood.
International Liaison: Anat Leshnick (2022-24)
Email: Anat.Leshnick@Colorado.EDU
Anat Leshnick is a PhD candidate in the Media Studies Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her dissertation research examines how and why militaries legitimize their narratives about war and conflict situations through visual media in an age of information disorders. A recipient of a 2018 Top Paper Award from the Intercultural Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), Leshnick has forthcoming publications in New Media & Society, the International Journal of Communication and Media, Culture & Society. She is the elected international liaison of ICA’s Visual Communication Division (2022-2024). Raised in both Israel and the US, Leshnick holds an MA in Communication from the University of Haifa and a BA in Communication from Sapir College.
Student and Early Career Representative: Natalia Mielczarek (2022-24)
Email: nmiel@vt.edu
Natalia Mielczarek is an assistant professor of visual communication in the School of Communication within the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. Her research interests include visual rhetoric, iconicity, Internet memes and appropriation of images in remix culture. She spent 10 years working as a newspaper reporter before returning to academia.
ICA Visual Communication Studies 