Page 6 - Communique Newsletter Spring 2020

Introducing New Faculty

DR. LIN SUN

Born and raised in China, Lin (Veronica) Sun is going to
receive her Ph.D. in Communication Studies this summer
from the University of Iowa. As a Communication
technology scholar, Lin’s research broadly investigates
the critical roles of digital technology in the formation of
online communities and the organization of collective
action online. Engaging with online fieldwork, her current
project investigates cyber- nationalism in contemporary
China. This project argues that contemporary Chinese
cyber-nationalists perform grassroots connective action that creatively negotiates the state agenda to
reinforce nationalism as the overriding moral standard for individuals’ everyday practices. This work
intervenes in critical debates on the nature of online activism, critical technology studies and theories of
publics and the public sphere. Before her doctoral study at the University of Iowa, Lin received her M.A. in
Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and completed her B.A. in Communication

Studies and her B.B.A. in Marketing at the University of Iowa.

DR. JENNA DELGADO

Jenna M. Delgado has been a community-based artist and
activist since 1991, when she began as an actor and peer
educator with an HIV education theater ensemble in Los
Angeles County. She then spent several years in social
services as a trainer for primary medical care givers, teaching
about socio-cultural issues relevant to the HIV health crisis,
and worked as a dialogue facilitator in several educational,
conflict, and activist-based settings. Currently, as a
community
based artist, she specializes in collaborative art projects within non-profit and grass roots sectors,
emphasizing critical explorations of lived experience and social justice. Jenna received her PhD from UCLA’s

Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. Her research in community practice critically analyzes
negotiations of subjectivity, process pedagogies, aesthetic hierarchies; and theorizes the relationships
between institutional power, disciplinary authority, and notions of efficacy. While at UCLA, Jenna worked
closely with the Art & Global Health Center, collaborating on project development and curriculum design for
several of its art-based health interventions.

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