MA in Communication - Faculty

Faculty

In Saint Mary's MA in Communication, we are committed to helping students grow as both people and professionals. Our distingished faculty members have decades of experience across research, teaching, and communication studies.

Our MA in Comm's signature foundations in communication theory, faculty mentorship, research skills, and small class sizes represent how we take a holistic approach to ensuring that our graduates are prepared for a wide variety of opportunities after completing graduate school.

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Veronica Hefner

MA in Communication Program Director, Associate Professor

Veronica Hefner (Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2011) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and the Director of the Master of Arts in Communication program. As a teacher-scholar, Dr. Hefner explores the uses and effects of traditional and digital media within the contexts of interpersonal relationships and body image. She has an expert knowledge of statistics, data analysis, audience effects, research methods, instrument construction, creation and maintenance of relationships, and uses of mass and social media. In addition, Dr. Hefner has extensive experience teaching research methods and media and strategic writing, as well as mass, interpersonal, health, campaigns, and strategic communication courses.

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Ellen M. Rigsby

Associate Professor

Ellen M. Rigsby (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2001) is a Professor in the Department of Communication. She was born in Nashville, TN and raised there and in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Rigsby earned her B.A. in Political Science at The Johns Hopkins University. Following a gap year in New Orleans, she moved to California to pursue a Ph.D. in Rhetoric, and earned her Master’s in that topic in 1994. She joined the Saint Mary’s faculty in the Fall of 2000. Her research interests focus on how people imagine government in texts they read and write: she examines popular culture texts, literature, public address, political philosophy and legal texts. She also frequently teaches in the Collegiate Seminar Program. In addition to her work at Saint Mary’s, Dr. Rigsby is an avid runner and practitioner of yoga, and an occasional instructor at the Prison University Project at San Quentin.

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Aaron Sachowitz

Professor

Aaron Sachowitz (Ph.D., University of Iowa, 2009) is Professor of Media Technologies and Culture at Saint Mary’s College of California. Born and raised in Berkeley, California, he earned a B.A. in Media Studies from Pomona College in Southern California before moving to New Zealand to live and work for a year prior to graduate school. He joined the Saint Mary’s faculty in 2009, focusing his research on the intersection of media technologies and cultural representation. A proponent of service, Aaron has developed local and international courses on food justice, as well as study trips to Japan, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and India. When not working, Aaron is a homesteader, and can be found fermenting anything from pickles to kimchi to beer, cooking for his family, or gardening in his backyard.

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Scott M. Schönfeldt-Aultman

Professor

Scott M. Schönfeldt-Aultman (Ph.D., University of California, Davis, 2004) was born in Statesboro, GA and grew up in Shelbyville, KY, Elberton, GA, and Seaford, DE. He earned a B.A. in Speech/Communication from the University of Georgia and a Master of Divinity degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. After two years of an unfinished Ph.D. (focusing on feminist theology) at McGill University, he earned his M.A. in Speech and Communication Studies at San Francisco State prior to receiving his Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Davis. He began at SMC in 2001 and his current projects concern social justice, whiteness, race, gender, and sexuality. When not engaged in academic activities, he might be found cooking, attempting to play guitar, researching family history/genealogy, traveling, scuba diving, or brewing beer.

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Samantha Noguiera Joyce

Associate Professor

Samantha Nogueira Joyce is a Brazilian journalist and Associate Professor of Global Communication at Saint Mary’s College of California. She studies media history, theory, and criticism with concentrations in cultural studies, critical theory, Latin American and Brazilian Media and Cultural Studies. Her research covers a range of contemporary as well as historical topics in order to understand the many ways in which people’s identities are constituted by and through the media, especially television. In addition to her book Brazilian Telenovelas and the Myth of Racial Democracy her research has appeared on International Journal of Communication, Brazilian Journalism Research, Rumores, Television Antiheroines: WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY IN CRIME AND PRISON DRAMA, and others.

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Jeff Sheng

Assistant Professor

Jeff Sheng is an academic researcher and American artist whose photographic work over the last two decades has focused on the 21st century LGBT rights movement. His photographs have been featured in the New York Times, LA Times, CNN, NYT Magazine, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Advocate, and The New Yorker, among others. He is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Saint Mary’s College of California in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is currently writing an academic book about technology, social movements, and government repression, based on his photography and research on closeted LGBT service members in the US Military. The project includes photographic portraits of these service members before and after the discriminatory policies against LGBT military service were lifted.  

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Neeley Silberman

Adjunct Associate Professor

Neeley Silberman, a member of the Communication faculty at Saint Mary's since Fall 1998, explores the intersection of social media and self-disclosure, particularly how individuals construct their identities and understand others through digital platforms as they build relationships. In addition to her academic work, she is an experienced communication consultant with qualitative research focused primarily on the nonprofit sector. She collaborates with nonprofit organizations to enhance their visibility, communication strategies, and funding efforts. Outside of her professional pursuits, she is a certified fitness instructor who enjoys teaching yoga and spin classes, as well as strength training. In her downtime, she loves hiking, knitting, reading, and cooking. Her greatest joy, however, comes from spending quality time with her two daughters and her husband of 30 years.