Meet Our Team!

Abdulhameed Olaitan Ridwanullah

PhD Student in Interdisciplinary Arts, Media and Design

His research explores the nexus between communication, technology, and society. He explores how communication and various communication innovations reshape our society and how to best harness the potential of these innovations for the greater good. Some of his projects examine disinformation on social media during COVID-19, countering insurgency through strategic communication, addressing the prevalence of hate speech on social media, and the transmutation of online hate offline, among others

Interests: Hate Speech, Media for Peace Promotion, Covid-19

Caleb Okereke

PhD Student in Interdisciplinary Arts, Media and Design

Caleb Okereke is a Journalism PhD student at Northeastern University and a Doctoral Fellow at the Internet Democracy Initiative. He is the Founder and Executive Editor of Minority Africa, a digital publication covering minorities on the continent. He’s reported across Africa for Aljazeera, Foreign Policy, CNN, The Guardian, and VICE News and was previously a Heidi News correspondent based out of Kampala, Uganda. Caleb has spoken about inclusive and representative journalism at Oxford and Stanford Universities and at the International Journalism Festival.

Key Research Areas: Journalism, Minorities

Filiz Durgun

PhD Student in Interdisciplinary Arts, Media and Design

She studies how visual and interactive design strategies can promote mental health awareness, reduce stigma, and foster understanding across diverse cultural contexts.

Interests: Serious Games, Mental Health, Immersive and Interactive Experiences, Stigmas, Social Change, Raising Awareness

Maria Elena Villar

Lab Director, Professor & Chair

Her research is situated at the intersection of strategic communication and health/science communication, focusing on community engagement with under-represented and hyper-vulnerable populations. Many of her projects involve co-creation of content with community members around topics such as mental health stigma, domestic and sexual violence, vaccine hesitancy, and environmental threats to communities. 

Interests: Strategic Communication, Raising Awareness, Empathy, Community-based research, Fotonovelas

Aayat Bhatia

Aayat is an undergraduate student, majoring in Business Administration and Communication Studies, with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Consulting. Her interests lie at the intersection of branding, digital media, consumer behavior, and social impact, and she loves exploring how storytelling and strategic communication shape the way people engage with brands, media, and social issues. Her experiences have spanned across industries—from media to global advocacy. She did a co-op at GQ India, a Condé Nast publication; interned for Rising Among doing marketing and social media during New York Fashion Week (NYFW); I worked with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia-Pacific Regional Office on a digital campaign focused on ending child marriage in India; and I served as a Publicity and Awareness Volunteer for Africa Youth for Peace and Development (AYPAD) USA.

David Tamés

Teaching Professor, Art + Design, Communication Studies

David Tamés is a documentary media maker working in both linear and interactive forms. David Tamés is a media maker working in traditional and immersive media forms. His creative practice focuses on media co-creation and immersive media production. David recently completed an MIT Open Documentary Lab Fellowship, conducting research for the book “Mediated Presence: Immersive Experience Design for UX Designers, Filmmakers, Artists, and Content Creators” co-authored with Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski, to be published by Focal Press in 2025. He is a teaching professor in the Department of Art + Design at Northeastern University with a joint appointment in Communication Studies teaching video production and XR design courses. David serves on the board of directors of Filmmaker’s Collaborative (https://filmmakerscollab.org/) and the advisory board of MedVR (https://medvr.io/). He has produced award-winning short films and recently co-directed and co-produced Reality’s Fugue: Genesis, a virtual reality experience that provides a new take on the Genesis origin story to suggest how we create a shared world. 

Fanuel Muindi

Professor of Practice, Communication Studies

Fanuel Muindi is a former neuroscientist turned civic science scholar-journalist and entrepreneur whose work primarily focuses on mapping the evolving landscapes of research and practice in civic science. He is a Professor of Practice in the Department of Communication Studies, and is the Founder of the Civic Science Media Lab. The lab uses civic science journalism to tell impact stories from the civic nature of science through video, digital print, and audio media. The lab works to make emerging roles, knowledge, behaviors, motivations, and responsibilities across the landscape of civic science more accessible and actionable for scientists, engagement practitioners, and public leaders. Its flagship initiative, the Civic Science Television Network (CivicSciTV), features 10+ programs that deliver on-the-ground impact insights from stakeholders across the civic science ecosystem. Insights from the lab have been published in journals such as Nature, Trends in Cell Biology, Trends in Molecular Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, SciDev, European Journal of Neuroscience, and PLoS One.

Kledia Spiro

Postgraduate Teaching Fellow & Assistant Professor

Kledia Spiro is a multimedia, interdisciplinary artist and educator creating experiential videos, performances, installations, and socially engaged works. Her immersive practice blends psychoanalytic concepts with humor and ritual to question movement, power, and presence. Spiro’s work has been presented at Times Square, the Queens Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Clio Art Fair, a New York art fair featured in The New York Times and Times Square Chronicles. he recently received a Mellon Foundation grant as part of UnMonument Boston for a projection mapping and was commissioned by the City of Boston to perform in States of Emergence. She has delivered a TEDx talk titled “The Pursuit of Creativity” and was the keynote speaker for the New England Museum Association’s Centennial Conference. Her work has received extensive coverage in The Boston Globe, Hyperallergic, and WBUR.

Maritza Concha

Maritza Concha, a lecturer in the School of Public Administration. Prior to joining UCF full-time in 2019, Concha has worked as an evaluator for more than 20 years, primarily supporting nonprofits serving Latin American immigrants, and taught students in the nonprofit management and public administration programs. Her research primarily focuses on evaluating projects that serve at-risk populations, such as victims of human trafficking, refugees and low-income minorities. Concha’s work has been published in journals, such as the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, Journal of Community Practice and International Journal of Public Administration. She served as the UCF Center for Public and Nonprofit Management Director from 2021-2024.

Jessica Wendorf Muhamad

Associate Professor, Florida State University

Jessica Wendorf Muhamad, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Associate Director of the Center for Hispanic Communication in the School of Communication at Florida State University. Dr. Wendorf Muhamad is also the Director of PEAKS laboratory (Participatory, Experientially based Applied Knowledge for Social Change), which is focused on developing – through action research – evidence-based interventions for complex social issues.