Lexa Murphy,
Professor and Interim Dean of the College of Communication
College of Communication
Alexandra G. Murphy is a professor of communication and interim dean of the College of Communication. She received her BA and MA from the University of Utah, and her PhD from the University of South Florida. Her research centers on organizational communication and culture, focusing on the risks that can occur in organizational and social contexts when taken-for-granted communication practices are unquestioningly reproduced and institutionalized. In particular, she has a strong interest in organizational and social contexts where lives are on the line.
Murphy has worked on organizational development issues and improving communication among airline crews and medical staff in hospital emergency rooms. She has also worked extensively on public health communication programs for HIV/AIDS education in Kenya, Africa.
Her work has been published in Communication Monographs, Text and Performance Quarterly, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, and Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, as well as edited books.
Chair: Anuradha Rana,
Professor in Film, Co-Chair of the Documentary Program
Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media
Anuradha Rana is a Vincent de Paul Professor in Film, an Associate Professor and Co-Chair of the Documentary Program at DePaul University’s School of Cinematic Arts and part of the leadership team for the Asian American Doc Network (A-DOC). Anuradha was formerly the Creative Lead for the Diverse Voices in Docs fellowship organized by documentary powerhouse, Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams, Minding the Gap, Unapologetic, Finding Yingying) and the Community Film Workshop of Chicago (CFW) where she designed and led the annual mentorship and film development program for BIPOC documentary filmmakers. She was named one of Chicago’s 50 Screen Gems in 2017 & 2019, and was selected to be a part of ArtEquity’s BIPOC Leadership Cohort, a DCASE esteemed artist, and DOC NYC’s Documentary New Leader in 2021.
Moderator: Kathryn Ibata-Arens,
Professor of Political Economy
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Kathryn Ibata-Arens is Vincent de Paul Professor of Political Economy, Department of Political Science, DePaul University. A scholar of innovation and entrepreneurship, science and technology policy, and economic development, her award-winning 2021 book Pandemic Medicine: Why the Global Innovation System is Broken and How We Can Fix It analyzes international competition in new drug discovery and access to essential medicines as related to the protection and conservation of plant medicinal biodiversity. Ibata-Arens is also researching the moral economy of patents over living matter, particularly that taken from indigenous community spaces. Her 2019 book Beyond Technonationalism: Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Asia uses the lens of venture start-up firms in China, India, Japan, and Singapore, finding a new “networked techno-nationalism” guiding national policy and firm-level strategy supporting competitive growth in frontier technologies. In her journal articles, blogs, policy briefings, podcasts, and books, Ibata-Arens employs such methods as historical-institutional, policy and social network analysis, and original fieldwork-based case studies, contextualized within global politics and markets. She is a recipient of multiple Fulbright fellowships as well as an Abe Fellowship at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), Tokyo University. Ibata-Arens serves currently as international board of advisor for the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Foundation and as (elected) member of the international executive council of the Association for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE). In her free time, she enjoys gardening, hiking, traveling, and tasting global cuisines.