Research Associate

Vivian Medina-Messner is a full-time faculty member in the journalism sequence of the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University. She joined the faculty as an instructor in 2011 after a professional career as a content producer for Media General Interactive (TimesDispatch.com) and as an online producer for MiamiHerald.com. She also worked as a freelance business columnist for El Nuevo Herald and as a foreign language consultant for the microblogging platform Tumblr.

At VCU, Medina-Messner teaches mobile and social media journalism as well as multimedia reporting classes in the undergraduate and graduate journalism programs as well as online classes with several hundred students in global communications and mass communications. Since 2012, she has been co-academic director of VCU’s Social Media Institute and the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange program, which is sponsored by the U.S. State Department and combines VCU students and college students from Iraq for social media campaign development for nonprofit organizations.

Medina-Messner earned her B.A. in international communications and international affairs from the American University of Paris and her M.A. in business journalism from Florida International University.