School of Journalism and Mass Communications faculty and graduate students were honored for excellence in research and teaching at the 2025 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication held Aug. 8-10 in San Francisco.
Photo (l to r): Top faculty paper award recipients: Joon Kim, Ali Zain and Jungmi Jun. Top graduate student paper recipients: Dante Mozie, Yu Chen and Carrie Jingyi Xiao.
Professional Honors and Awards
Brett Robertson
University of South Carolina Integrity Award Recipient
Brett Robertson approaches academic integrity not as a policy obligation but as a teaching opportunity. He facilitates genuine dialogue about ethical decision-making and adopts open-access and zero-cost textbooks and materials to remove financial pressures that can push struggling students toward dishonest choices. Students describe Brett as someone who listens, cares, and wants them to carry ethical values into every interaction of their lives.
Nina Brook
SJMC senior instructor named 2026 Faculty Champion by the Center for Community News
Nina Brook, senior instructor and scholastic media programs director, is one of 150 journalism leaders from colleges across the country recognized for efforts to start or expand university-led reporting programs in their region, and their contribution to a national movement of student-powered community reporting.
Sabrina Habib
Sabrina Habib was selected to the Possibility Studies Network Research Board, an international conference prominent in creativity studies.
Haley Hatfield, assistant professor
Assistant professor Haley Hatfield was elected secretary of the Information Systems Division of the International Communication Association (ICA).She will serve a two-year term. Hatfield previously served as the Student & Early Career Representative for the ICA.
Hatfield was selected for the USC Provost’s Office SEC Visiting Faculty Travel Grant (AY 2025–2026) to support collaboration with UGA and LSU.
Bryan Jenkins, research assistant professor
Bryan Jenkins was accepted into the Scholars in Health and Alzheimer’s Research Engagement (SHARE) program. This program is a part of a 5-year grant supported by the National Institute on Aging to develop a research training program to increase the level of expertise and community engagement efforts of faculty conducting Alzheimer’s Disease and other Related Dementias related research at the university.
Bryan is one of the three inaugural scholars for the program who have been awarded grant funds ($12,500) to conduct a community engaged pilot study that seeks to improve ADRD-related health outcomes in the state. In addition to research funds, the program also includes mentorship and professional development opportunities to help advance the SHARE Scholars’ projects and ADRD research skills and expertise.
Lila Anna Sauls
2026 USC Social Justice Award Winner
Alumna and adjunct faculty Sauls, president and CEO of Homeless No More, was the 2026 community partner recipient of USC’s Martin Luther King Social Justice Award.
Staff Spotlight Award
Sabrina McClure
Sabrina McClure was the recipient of the September CIC Staff Spotlight Award honoree! As an academic advisor, she goes above and beyond to support students with care, encouragement and guidance. Her positivity and teamwork inspire those around her, making her an invaluable part of our team.
Megan Walker
Megan Walker was the recipient of the February CIC Staff Spotlight Award. She was honored for her logistical coordination and kind and friendly manner. "She is professional and resourceful. In my observation, she is the glue for our org! She has made me feel like I had a "soft place to land" when I didn't know where to go for answers. She's an amazing teammate!"
Previous Year Accolades
Brett Robertson awarded the Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award
Assistant professor Brett Robertson in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications has been honored with the award, which recognizes faculty who demonstrate exceptional commitment to undergraduate education, innovative teaching methods and a profound impact on student learning.
Garnet Media Group names Kelly Davis top CIC professor
Kelly Davis was named Best Professor in the College of Information and Communications in Garnet Media Group’s Best of Carolina showcase.
Students in The Carolina Agency said she "... consistently leads and inspires our agency’s strategic communications professionals, both past and future, serving as both a dedicated mentor and a role model."
Mary Anne Fitzpatrick was awarded the National Communication Association's prestigious Charles H. Woolbert Research Award for her 2002 article, “Toward a Theory of Family Communication,” published in Communication Theory.
The article emerged as the top candidate owing to the endurance of family communication pattern theory, the generative impact of the theory on the field of family communication, and the far-reaching impact of the theory across several subfields of the discipline.
The Carolina Agency
TCA won the CIC Access and Engagement Award which recognizes faculty, staff and student organizations whose contributions best exemplify the college’s access, engagement, and inclusive excellence commitments and objectives.
Damion Waymer received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Leadership
Waymer was recognized for a number of achievements, including: successful reaccreditation and centennial his first year here; addressing curricular challenges; took the lead on shepherding new communication BA through approvals; asking good questions and challenges assumptions; and embracing change.
Publication Awards
Damion Waymer's article, Arts promotion and Black urban displacement: Exploring the paradox of the positive in government public relations and urban renewal discourse, was honored with the 2024 Outstanding Scholarly Article Award by the African American Communication and Culture Division of the National Communication Association.
The awards committee described Waymer's scholarship as "exceptional" and thanked him for his "hard work and for demonstrating AACCD'S commitment to centering issues concerning African Americans and Black ethnicity in your scholarship."
Shannon Bowen, Marlene Neill and Denise Bortree were awarded the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication Top Ethics in PR Pedagogy Award.
This award is a distinguished honor given annually to one exemplary paper in the field of ethics in public relations pedagogy. It recognizes groundbreaking research that significantly contributes to the understanding and teaching of ethics and responsibility in public communication.
Funded Research and Grants
Sabrina Habib and Jeff Williams are Co-PIs on a $500,000 project from the U.S. Department of Justice, “Microtrainings on Critical Policing Issues: Creating and evaluating accessible, digestible trainings based on the Excellence in Policing and Public Safety (EPPS) Masters in Public Safety Leadership.” They will be working with colleagues from the Excellence in Policing and Public Safety Program at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law.
Feili Tu-Keefner (PI), and Brett Robertson (Co-PI) - Project Library PREPARE: Planning, Response, Emergency Preparedness, and Resilience Education - $249,721
USC Propel Programs
Anli Xiao and Haley Hatfield were accepted into the USC Propel Research Mentorship Program. This one-year training program is designed to prepare faculty for securing federal grants. The application process is highly competitive, and acceptance into this program signifies the university’s recognition of exceptional research capabilities.
Sabrina Habib and Linwan Wu were accepted in the Propel AI Program which is offered by the USC vice president's office. They will represent the CIC in this one-year campus-wide discussion on AI-related research.