Members
Gerardo León Barrios
Gerardo León Barrios is a doctoral student in Science and Humanities for interdisciplinary development in the Autonomous University of Coahuila and the UNAM-CEIICH. He teaches communication specializing in diffusion of science and culture at ITESO. He received his undergraduate degree in communication from University Iberoamericana North (UIA). He is a professor of communication at the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC), Tijuana where he is a member of an academic research group investigating "Communication, Society and Organization" within a broader line of investigation that studies "Interaction & Society." He also is a member of the Mexican Association of Communication Researchers. He has published articles on a wide variety of communication topics including communication and culture, research methods in communication, migration, culture and communication. His work has been published in academic journals including Razón y Palabra and Estudios sobre las Culturas Contemporáneas and Comunicología. He is currently working on a book titled, Footprints of uncertainty: Migration and culture from the border.
Laura Castañeda
Laura Castañeda is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Radio and Television Department at San Diego City College and an independent producer. In 2008 she completed her first documentary titled "The Devil's Breath," the account of the undocumented people who perished in the 2007 San Diego wildfires. She also produces and hosts her own show titled "Stories de la Frontera," which airs on several PBS affiliates in the southwest United States.
Prior to her solo career, Laura reported for Channel 4 Cox Cable's "San Diego Insider" news magazine show and KGTV Channel 10, where she previously worked as a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor from 1995-1999.
Laura Castañeda began her television news career in 1987 as a production assistant at WLS-TV, ABC in Chicago, her hometown. She is an alumnus of the University of Illinois-Urbana with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a minor in Sociology. She is a two-time Emmy Award winner for her "Stories de le Frontera" program.
She belongs to various professional journalism organizations and non-profits including UNITY, NALIP, CCNMA, NAHJ and IRE.
Esteban del Río
Esteban del Río is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of San Diego. He earned a Ph.D. in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A media and cultural studies scholar, del Río’s research examines how meaning and power operate in situations of ideological conflict in transnational public and popular culture. His current work focuses on Latino media studies and the representation of dissent.
Leonardo Baldenegro Díaz
Leonardo Baldenegro Díaz completed his undergraduate work at UABC in Communication Science in 1992. He bsegan his career working as an assistant to Héctor Algravez. He has taught photography at several universities including the Salvatierra, Cetys University, California College and since January 2005 has been coordinator of the Photography Major and a faculty member in the Social Sciences at UABC, Mexicali. He is also an independent photographer and artist and in 2000 received a grant fro FOECABC. He has received various awards and ben involved in several exhibitions throughout Mexico.
Hugo Méndez Fierros
Hugo Méndez has a doctorate in global development and a master’s in communication. He completed his undergraduate work in communication science. Currently he is professor at UABC, Mexicali where he coordinates the graduate research program. He id s member of the national organization of researchers, level “C.” His research interests include sociocultural communication, with an emphasis in discourse analysis studying power and representation. Currently he is investigating the symbolic construction of social problems such as the representation of desert communities in Mexico. He is co-editor, with Fernando Vizcarra, of a book titled Shared Footprints: Essays on the field of communication in Baja California. He co-authored a book with Alberto Gárate, Antonia Sánchez and Luis Linares Between the Spine and the Memory and has published many other books.
Laura Figueroa Lizárraga
Laura Figueroa teaches Sociocultural studies and has a degree from the UABC. She specializes in the appreciation and interpretation of film and is a professor at UABC, Mexicali in the department of Human Sciences, where she also coordinates the television lab. As a journalist, she has written about film for El Universal and Cine Periodista. She has presented her work on film studies at various academic conferences.
Patricia Geist-Martin, Ph.D.
Patricia Geist-Martin, Professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University, received her Ph.D. in Communication from Purdue University in 1985. She is a Professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University where she teaches organizational communication, health communication, ethnographic research methods, and gender & organizational communication. Her research interests focus on narrative and negotiating identity, voice, ideology, & control in organizations, particularly in health and illness. She has published three books, Communicating Health: Personal, political, and cultural complexities (2004) (with Eileen Berlin Ray and Barbara Sharf), Courage of Conviction: Women's Words, Women's Wisdom (1997) (with Linda A. M. Perry), and Negotiating the Crisis: DRGs and the Transformation of Hospitals (1992) (with Monica Hardesty). She has published over 50 articles and book chapters covering a wide range of topics.
Daniel C. Hallin, Ph.D.
Daniel C. Hallin is Professor of Communication at the University of California at San Diego and Chair of the Communication Department. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley. His books include The "Uncensored War": The Media and Vietnam, We Keep America on Top of the World: Television News and the Public Sphere and, with Paolo Mancini, Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. The latter book has received the Goldsmith Book Award of the Shorenstein Center on Press and Politics, the Diamond Anniversary Book Award of the National Communication Association and the Outstanding Book Award of the International Communication Association, and has been transated into many languages. Most recently he has edited new a book, again with Paolo Mancini, entitled Comparing Media Systems beyond the Wesrtern World, which will be published next year. He has also been awarded the Murray Edelman Distinguished Carreer Award by the Political Communication Division of the American Political Science Association. He is a past President of Binacom, and has been recognized for his work with Binacom with an honorary Masters degree from the Autonomous University of Baja California. His research covers media and politics, media and war, media and public health, the history of journalistic professionalism, comparative media systems, particularly in Europe and Latin America.
David González Hernández, Ph.D.
David González Hernández is a communication professor in the Faculty of Humanities at Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC), Campus Tijuana. González is currently studying his Ph D in Communication at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He was the communication bachelor program coordinator (2004-2007) and postgraduate and research coordinator (2008-2009) at UABC. González is a member of the Mexican Association of Communication Research (AMIC), where he shares a conference theme chair on Reception Studies since 2005. He is also a member of the editorial counsel of the Global Media Journal in Spanish (Mexico). His research interests are oriented toward mass media (Television, Press) and its relation with the public and audiences in the United States/Mexico border region.
He has a master degree in Communication from ITESO, and bachelor in Communication Sciences from Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA). In 2004 he won the National Counsel for the Teaching and Investigation in Communication Sciences (Consejo Nacional de la Enseñanza y la Investigación en Ciencias de la Comunicación) award for best thesis in a master degree. This research was published as a book ““El sueño americano en México. Televisión estadounidense y audiencias juveniles en Tijuana” (The American Dream in Mexico. U.S. Television and youth audiences in Tijuana) edited by UABC, 2008.
Laura Figueroa Lizárraga
Maestra en Estudios Socioculturales y Licenciada en Ciencias de la Comunicación, ambas por la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC). Es docente de las materias de Editorial y Apreciación e interpretación del cine en la Facultad de Ciencias Humanas de la UABC, donde también coordina el Laboratorio de televisión. Como periodista, ha escrito sobre cine para medios impresos como El Universal y Cine Premiere, así como participado con textos académicos sobre cine en diversos congresos de comunicación.
Hugo Mendez Fierros
Hugo Méndez has a doctorate in global development and a master’s in communication. He completed his undergraduate work in communication science. Currently he is professor at UABC, Mexicali where he coordinates the graduate research program. He id s member of the national organization of researchers, level “C.” His research interests include sociocultural communication, with an emphasis in discourse analysis studying power and representation. Currently he is investigating the symbolic construction of social problems such as the representation of desert communities in Mexico. He is co-editor, with Fernando Vizcarra, of a book titled Shared Footprints: Essays on the field of communication in Baja California. He co-authored a book with Alberto Gárate, Antonia Sánchez and Luis Linares Between the Spine and the Memory and has published many other books.
Antonieta Mercado
Antonieta Mercado is Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Communication at UCSD. She has a Masters' in Communication and Public Relations from San Diego State University, graduating with a thesis about the role of media in the perception of candidate image in Mexico’s 2000 Presidential election. Antonieta has a bachelors´ degree in Political Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, graduating first in her class with a thesis on the Mexican labor movement. She joined BINACOM in the year 2000, and has participated since.
Antonieta is currently writing a dissertation about communication, citizenship, and organizational practices of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Her principal interest is to study diverse forms of citizenship related to transnational and cosmopolitan civic practices exercised by commonly disenfranchised groups, such as immigrants, and ethnic minorities. She has also worked organizing community empowerment workshops, women rights, and media literacy courses for immigrant organizations in San Diego and Los Angeles. Currently she works organizing community workshops for the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales, Indigenous Binational Front of Binational Organizations (FIOB) in San Diego. While doing her Ph. D. course work, she participated as research assistant for “La Clase Mágica” a well-established program promoting diversity in cognitive development among immigrant and disadvantaged children in San Diego elementary schools.
She has worked as a freelance journalist writing about International Relations, Minorities and Media, Politics, Immigration, Women’s Rights, and other relevant topics; in different newspapers, such as La Opinión in Los Angeles, and Reforma in Mexico City; she also has written for other Spanish language publications in the United States, such as Revista MX and El Tequio. She also writes articles for the electronic publication: “Mexican Footsteps” (Huellas Mexicanas). She also worked as a research assistant at the Annenberg School of Communications in USC, studying immigrant media and organizations in Los Angeles.
Before going back to graduate school, Antonieta worked during four years at the Press and Communication office at the Mexican Consulate in San Diego, where she designed a project for the evaluation of the image of Mexico in U.S. media, participated in the design of prevention programs for immigrants, and coordinated the radio program for the Consulate “Paisano Infórmate” which featured information regarding immigrant health, law, labor rights, and other community services aimed for Mexican immigrants living in the United States. Back in México, she worked in the presidential campaign of the late candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, and as an analyst at Grupo Consultor Interdisciplinario, a political consulting firm.
Kristin Moran, Ph.D.
Kristin C. Moran is an associate professor at the University of San Diego in the department of communication studies. She received her M.A. (1997) and Ph.D. (2000) from the University of Washington where she developed her research interest in international communication. Her research focuses on Spanish-language media in the United States, Mexico and Spain with special attention to the global expansion of children’s television networks. She is currently completing a book on the role of media in the lives of Latino families in Southern California. Her research has appeared in journals including Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism and Learning, Media and Technology, Journal of Children and Media. She teaches courses in media theory & criticism, children and media, and international media.
Magalí Muriá
Magalí Muriá is currently a doctoral candidate in Communication at the University of California, San Diego currently finishing a dissertation on cross-border consumption patterns in the San Diego-Tijuana region. She also holds a M.A. in International Communication from Boston University, and a B.A. in International Relations from Mexico’s premier social science institution, El Colegio de México, in México City. Since 1998, she has lived and worked in the U.S.-Mexico border where she has worked on cultivating and studying cross-border communication and cooperation between the United States and Mexico, both on the government and academic sectors. At the Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego, she worked on collaboration cross-border projects between Tijuana and San Diego institutions in the areas of culture and education, while she participated in the design of community outreach, internal communications, and public diplomacy strategies. She has also worked for research institutions in Mexico and the United States, participating in projects related to the U.S.-Mexico border labor and consumer markets as well as the role of the Mexican American community in U.S.-Mexican relations, and collaborated in the creation of the BorderPact Network, organized by the Consortium of North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) that gathers higher education institutions along the U.S.-Mexico border. Since 2004, Magalí has also taught courses related to U.S.-Mexican relations and the U.S.-Mexico border in higher education institutions on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Armando Gutiérrez Ortega
Armando Gutiérrez Ortega is a faculty member in the department of communication sciences at the Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexicali. He studies journalism, documentary and commercial video production, and graphic web design. He teaches courses on television, communication theory, visual theory and is a production assistant in the resource labs at UBC.
Russel Redmond
Russel Redmond graduated from UCLA Film School "cum laude", with a specialization in screenwriting --and he continues to this day, both writing scripts and teaching script writing. He has worked in television for local, regional and international (BBC) companies as a writer and film reviewer, and as an art director. He has worked with local and national advertising agencies creating commercials and documentaries. Russel also works as an artist, doing commissioned paintings, illustrations, logos, designs and advertising art for private and corporate clients. He and his wife, Jennifer Silva Redmond, spent many years living and working in Baja California, Mexico, and are currently working on two screenplays set in the U.S. -Mexican border region.
Jessica Retis
Jessica Retis is Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Co-Director of the Center for Ethnic and Alternative Media (CEAM) at California State University Northridge. B.A. in Communications from Universidad de Lima and a M.A. in Latin American Studies from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Retis has a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Instituto Universitario de Investigación Ortega y Gasset and Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She has been professor and researcher at several institutions in Latin America and Europe. Her research focuses on contemporary diasporas and the media: critical analysis of discourses on immigration in the U.S. and European media; production, distribution and consumption of media in contemporary diasporas; visual representations of immigrant's human rights; and television and public service. Prior to teaching, Retis has more than 18 years of experience as a journalist including working for print, radio and television in Latin America and Spain.
Héctor Jaime Macías Rodríguez
Héctor Jaime Macías Rodríguez is a professor in the department of Humanities at the Autonomous University of Baja California. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Science specializing in Communication at the University of Guadalajara. He received his undergraduate degree in Communication from ITESO. His research interests include mass communication, political communication and public opinion. He received honorable mention in the national competition for doctoral thesis on electoral studies from the Mexican Society of Electoral Studies (SOMEE) for his doctoral thesis "The Role of the Media in the Voting Decision of Tijuana Residents durng the presidential election of 2006 in Mexico."
Susana Espinosa Velazquez
Susana Espinosa graduated from UNAM specializing in journalism before gaining her Master’s degree from the University of Havana, Cuba with an emphasis organizational communication. She is currently completing her doctorate at the University of Havana, Cuba. She is a professor in the department of communication science at Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexicali. Prof. Espinosa teaches classes on communication theory, internal and external organizational communication, and is coordinator of the communication research lab. She is undergraduate program coordinator. Her primary areas of investigation are culture, climate, and image of organizations, analysis of communication practices of institutions of higher learning, organizational communication research methods from the perspective of multimediation.
Luz María Ortega Villa
Luz María Ortega Villa holds a doctorate en communication from the University of Havana and a master’s from Iberoamericana University, Northeast and received her undergraduate degree from the Autonomous Metropolitian University, Xochimilco. She has organized reserach projects about UABC, Mexicali extension programs as well as patterns of consumer behavior regarding cultural activites. She also studies development and poverity in the Tijuana/Mexicali region. She is a member of the International Communication Association (ICA) and the International Association of Mass Communication Reserachers (IAMCR). She has published various works in multiple outlets.
Amy Schmitz Weiss
Amy Schmitz Weiss is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University. Schmitz Weiss has a PhD in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a co-founder of her college's online newspaper and has worked at Chicago Tribune Online and Indianapolis Star News Online, where she produced and wrote news packages. Schmitz Weiss has also worked in business development, marketing analysis, and account management for several Chicago Internet media firms. Her research interests include online journalism, media sociology, news production, multimedia journalism, and international communication. She has an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and B.A. in Journalism and Spanish from Butler University.