Speakers
Dr. Brenda J. Allen is an Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Colorado Denver. Her research and teaching areas include organizational communication, diversity, group communication, and computer-mediated communication. Among her numerous publications is a groundbreaking book entitled Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity.
Dr. Allen has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Francine Merritt Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Lives of Women in Communication from the National Communication Association (2004). In January 2006, she received the first Annual Award for Outstanding Achievement for Commitment to Diversity at the University of Colorado Denver. She also was named a Master Teacher (2007-2008) by the Western States Communication Association. She recently received the first Annual Award for Outstanding Mentoring from the University of Colorado Denver and the 2011 Paul Boase Scholarship from Ohio University for distinguished scholarship in the field of communication. In addition, she has published numerous articles and presents on Difference Matters at college campuses nationally.
Dr. Amit Pinchevski is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He is the author of By Way of Interruption: Levinas and the Ethics of Communication and coeditor with Paul Frosh of Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication. His research interests include philosophy of communication, communication ethics, witnessing, and media and collective memory. Author of many journal articles and book chapters, Pinchevski's work is concerned with rethinking traditional premises of communication, ranging from Levinas's ethics of communication, through cultural analysis of autism, and recently focusing on questions of media and trauma.
Dr. Gerard A. Hauser is College Professor of Distinction in Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research focuses on the history of rhetorical theory, the role of rhetoric in a democracy, dissident rhetoric, and the interaction between formal and vernacular rhetorics in the public sphere. Dr. Hauser has published many articles, edited 3 books, and authored 2 scholarly works entitled Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres and Introduction to Rhetorical Theory. In 2007 the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder named him a College Professor of Distinction. He is a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association (NCA) and a Fellow of the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA). He is recipient of RSA's George E. Yoos Distinguished Service Award, its highest recognition. Other distinctions include NCA's Marie Hochmuth Nichols Book Award, RSA's Charles Kneupper Outstanding Article Award, and Campus Compact's Intermountain West Engaged Scholar Award. In addition, two awards were named in his honor: the Gerard A. Hauser Prize for Undergraduate Research established by Penn State and the Gerard A. Hauser Graduate Scholarship for outstanding graduate student paper established by RSA.