Lillian Anne Abreu is currently the Assistant Director and Research Associate at the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Florida International University (FIU).

Abreu received her doctoral degree in social welfare at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work at FIU.  Her research agenda focuses on social and economic mobility and Hispanic women living in the United States.  She also received a Master of Science in Fundraising Management and Nonprofit Administration from Columbia University, New York, a Master of Science in Social Work from Loyola University, and a Bachelor of Science in Social Work from Florida State University.

In her twenty-year-plus career in nonprofit and higher education, Lillian has dedicated her career to empowering underserved communities in Florida, Illinois, and New York.  Before joining FIU, Lillian’s expertise in community engagement, development, and social entrepreneurship assisted public and private organizations in meeting their strategic objectives by working with multidisciplinary teams to implement innovative programs that serve the community.

As the Assistant Director and Research Associate for the Kopenhaver Center,  Abreu spearheads research and programming initiatives and is responsible for inclusive programming to advance women in communication and other disciplines throughout the College of Communication, Architecture, + The Arts.  Abreu is also an adjunct professor at the University of North Alabama.

Presently, Lillian resides in the Village of Biscayne Park in Miami, FL, and is dedicated to her family, friends, and adopted rescue dogs, Maxi and Kenny.

Dr. Abreu’s research concentration is social and economic mobility for the US Hispanic female population.  Abreu investigates risk and protective factors related to educational attainment, labor attachment, and geographic location.

Prinicipal Study: Income Attainment and Hispanic Female Householders: Examining Educational Attainment, Labor Attachment, and Geographic Region.

Dr. Tatiana Andrienko-Genin is a distinguished professor, scholar, and academic leader with a successful three-decade academic, administrative and research background in Higher Education, known for her expertise in Intercultural Communication and Business Communication. She is an accomplished international author, conference keynote speaker, presenter, moderator, and corporate trainer, renowned in European countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, as well as the United States.

Currently serving as an Adjunct Lecturer at Florida International University and dedicated to fostering FIU students’ global awareness, engagement and collaboration, Dr. Andrienko-Genin has actively involved them in the international telecommunications with their peers from Great Britain, Mexico and Ukraine. Her global learning initiatives culminated in Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) projects in Intercultural Communication and Speech and Writing for Business courses.

Latest major FIU COIL projects with La Salle University in Mexico “Understanding Culture through Technology” (Spring and Fall 2023) focused on intercultural influences and interactions as manifested in a broad variety of areas from art and music to business cultures and professional identities. They allowed the participating students to develop deeper insights into the origins of cultural phenomena, practice perspective-taking and bridge gaps in understanding cultures. Their collaborations resulted in unique video-artefacts summarizing the project findings, as well as reflections on the intercultural experiences where the students emphasized that COIL was the most valuable asset in their course.

As an active member, Session Chair and presenter of the Association for Business Communication (ABC), Dr. Andrienko-Genin has presented COIL at the ABC Teaching Circle (October 12th, 2023: https://www.businesscommunication.org/p/bl/et/blogid=1&blogaid=494 ), as well as the plenary session of ABC 2023 Annual International Conference in Denver (October 18 – 28, 2023: https://www.businesscommunication.org/p/cm/ld/fid=1456).

Dr. Genin’s 100+ publications include eight books and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, such as:

Andrienko, T., Genin, V., & Kozubska, I. (2021). DEVELOPING INTERCULTURAL BUSINESS COMPETENCE VIA TEAM LEARNING IN POST-PANDEMIC ERA . Advanced Education, 8(18), 53–69. https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.214627

Andrienko T., Genin V. (2020). Intercultural business communication and translator’s cultural identity. National Identity in Language and Culture – Kyiv, Talcom, 106 – 111 https://er.nau.edu.ua/handle/NAU/43370

Andrienko, T. (2019). Cross-cultural interaction in the globalized business environment: The role of translator/interpreter. Issues of Modern Philology in the Context of the interaction of Languages and Cultures, Venice, Italy. – pp. 126 – 129.

In addition to her role at Florida International University, Dr. Andrienko-Genin serves as a part-time Professor, Faculty Senate Member and Chair of the Academic Standards, Policies, and Procedures Committee (2020), Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (2021 – 2022, 2023 – till present), and Faculty Affairs Committee (2022 – 2023), as well as and IRB Member. She has repeatedly represented her institution during WASC accreditation visits. Her teaching portfolio includes Academic Communication, Managerial Communication, Business Communication, Speech, Ethics & Debate, International Relations, World Politics, and Research Methods.

Dr. Andrienko-Genin holds a Doctor of Sciences, PhD in Intercultural Communication, a PhD in English Linguistics, and a Master of Arts in Education.

With a comprehensive skill set encompassing Higher Education Teaching, Research, Communication, Guest Lecturing, and Presentation Skills, Dr. Tatiana Andrienko-Genin continues to make significant contributions to the academic community through her research, publications, and dedication to fostering inclusive and effective learning environments.

Dr. Andrienko-Genin’s research concentration is Intercultural Business communication, with a focus on cultural gender identity.

Principal Study: Intercultural Communication, Female Leadership, Cultural and Gender Identity

Tracy Everbach is a professor of journalism in the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas. Her research focuses on women’s work and leadership in journalism, sports and gender, and representations of race and gender in media. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on race, gender, and media, news reporting, and qualitative research methods. She is a former newspaper reporter.

Professor Everbach’s area of research focuses on women in journalism; women in media leadership; representations of race, gender, and sexuality in media; women in sports media and representations of women athletes; and teaching controversial topics. Methods: in-depth interviews, ethnography, textual analysis, content analysis.

Principal Study: Women in Journalism.

Meg Heckman is a journalist, author and educator working to solve two of journalism’s biggest problems: a lack of gender equity in news and the decline of the local information ecosystem. As an associate professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism and Media Innovation, Heckman tackles these issues in her scholarship, her classroom, and her work advising news industry leaders.

Her core research focuses on understanding and dismantling journalism’s macho culture with the goal of improving gender equity in newsrooms and news content to create more opportunities for women in civic life. To do this, she leverages feminist media history to better understand the contours of modern journalism. Heckman also studies digital news production and dissemination, especially as it relates to how student journalists can help solve the local news crisis.

She teaches a mix of graduate and undergraduate news production classes as well as a course she developed that explores gender dynamics in the news industry. She is a faculty affiliate of the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks and an executive committee member for Northeastern’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program.

Before coming to Northeastern in 2017, Heckman was a journalism lecturer at the University of New Hampshire where she served as a faculty fellow at the Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center. She spent more than a decade as a reporter and, later, the digital editor at the Concord (NH) Monitor, where she developed a fascination with presidential politics, a passion for local news and an appreciation for cars with four-wheel drive.

Heckman has been an active member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) for the last decade, serving as the 2021-2022 head of its Commission on the Status of Women. She is also a past president of the New Hampshire Press Association and has served twice as a Pulitzer juror.

Professor Heckman’s concentration focuses on fostering comprehension and deconstructing the macho culture within journalism, aiming to enhance gender equity in newsrooms and news content, thus increasing opportunities for women in civic engagement.

Principal Study: Gender Equity in News and the Collapse of Local Information Ecosystem.

Dr. Julie Haynes, Professor of Communication Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies, has been named Director of the Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Rowan University.

Dr. Haynes’ research explores how categories of identity, such as gender, race, and class, influence public discourse, particularly in mediated and pop culture settings. She is especially interested in how regional identity complicates or enriches our understanding of self and place, and frequently writes on gender and region in the areas of reality television, horror, sport, and country music. Her work has been presented at numerous national and international conferences, including at Oxford University, and published in edited volumes and journals, such as Feminist Media Studies. Her dissertation on gender in country music videos is housed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives and was consulted in the making of Ken Burns’ documentary, Country Music. She teaches a variety of courses, including, Rhetorical Criticism, Images of Gender in Popular Culture, Rhetoric of Sport, Women and Gender in Perspective, Hitchcock and Gender, Rhetoric of Reality Television, Gender and Horror, and Rhetoric of Social Protest and Resistance. She is a Bildner Fellow and previously served as the Associate Dean of the College of Communication and Creative Arts.

Dr. Hayes research explores how categories of identity, such as gender, race, and class, influence public discourse, particularly in mediated and pop culture settings. She is especially interested in how regional identity complicates or enriches our understanding of self and place.

Principal Study: Regional identity and understanding self and place.

Dr. Bethanie Irons is the program chair of communication design at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. She also served as the Director of the Stephens College satellite location of the Kopenhaver Center from 2021 until 2023. Dr. Irons earned a Ph.D. in learning, teaching, and curriculum with an emphasis in art education and an MFA in visual studies from the University of Missouri. She also earned a BFA in art from the University of South Dakota.

Dr. Irons is an accomplished artist and designer. She has shown her work internationally, including in Norway, Australia, and the UK. Her work has been shown in numerous print publications, including New American Paintings and Friend of the Artist. Focusing on digital means of artistic production, she melds together art historical references with new media and illustration to address societal issues and mental health practices.

Dr. Irons wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on the use of social media, specifically Instagram, and its impacts on creative practice and mental health. This work has extended to her teaching, as she often focuses on using social media as an ideation practice and as a means to interrogate the rhizomatic connections between design, media, and society. She is an advocate for the well-being and advancement of women and non-binary designers in the field of communication. She strives to strengthen the Center’s mission to uphold diversity and inclusion invitations in communication practice and research.

Dr. Irons’s research focuses on the use of social media, specifically Instagram, and its impacts on creative practice and mental health.

Principal Study: Social Media, Digital Art, Design Research, Creative Process, Creativity + Mental Health Media Studies

Dr. Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver is executive director of the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication and dean emeritus and professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Named the Outstanding Woman in Journalism and Mass Communication Education for 2009 by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, she was recognized as a woman who has represented fellow women in the academy through excellence and high standards in journalism education.  A nationally known expert and researcher on the First Amendment, the scholastic and collegiate press, and the role and status of women in communication, she is the author of more than 125 scholarly articles, monographs and books.

Kopenhaver is past president of AEJMC, College Media Advisers, the Student Press Law Center, and the Community College Journalism Association. She holds the Wells Memorial Key from the Society of Professional Journalists, its highest honor, and was only the second woman in the history of the organization to win that award at that time, the CMA Distinguished Service Award, the AEJMC Newspaper Division Distinguished Service Award, the AEJMC Outstanding Leadership Award, the FIU Alumni Association Outstanding Faculty Torch Award and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Rowan University. She was inducted into the National Hall of Fame of both College Media Advisers and the Community College Journalism Association.

Kopenhaver was honored in 2011 with the FIU Distinguished University Service Medallion as an “exemplary role model” of the industry and the community and for demonstrating “a vision, initiative and drive that have been instrumental for almost four decades in the development of the university and the school.” In 2020 she was awarded the Lifetime Service Award from Rowan University and in 2022 was designated a Pioneer by the Associated Collegiate Press as its highest honor to journalism educators. In 2023 she was honored by the City of Miramar, Florida, in recognition of her commitment and dedication to the empowerment of women through education and professional development.

Kopenhaver joined FIU in 1973 and rose through the ranks to become dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2003, a post she held for nearly nine years. Over the course of her tenure, Kopenhaver was instrumental in creating programs and opportunities for students, particularly women. In what has historically been an industry largely dominated by men, Kopenhaver was frequently one of the few women to hold leadership positions and be part of the decision-making process within the communications fields. That was the impetus for her founding the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Florida International University in 2013.

Dr. Kopenhaver’s research concentration encompasses issues facing women in communications, including the status of women in careers throughout all the communications industries. Kopenhaver is also the prime researcher on college media advising, the collegiate and student press, and the First Amendment.

Principal Study: Status of Women in Careers Throughout all Communication Industries.

Sigal Segev (Ph.D., University of Leicester) is an Associate Professor of advertising in the Department of Communication at Florida International University (FIU). She has taught courses on different communication topics for more than 14 years in this department. Her research interests focus on green advertising and multicultural consumer behavior, two areas that she is very passionate about and which she often integrates into her research projects. Her work was published in the Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and European Journal of Marketing, as well as conference proceedings, among others. Sigal has been an active member of the American Academy of Advertising (AAA) for more than 10 years, serving as a member and Chair of the Research Committee, as well as AAA’s former Vice President. Sigal currently serves as AAA’s President-Elect. Prior to joining FIU, Sigal held Marketing Communications and public relations positions at both private and government sectors.

Dr. Segev’s research interests focuses on green advertising and multi-cultural consumer behavior.

Principal Study: Green Advertising and Multi-Cultural Consumer behavior.

Dr. Marla Royne Stafford is Professor of Marketing in the Lee Business School and Faculty Scholar at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. She is also a research affiliate at the UNLV Cannabis Policy Institute and faculty affiliate at the University of Georgia SEE Suite.  She was previously the William F. Harrah Distinguished Chair and Executive Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Harrah College of Hospitality. Prior to joining UNLV, she was Interim Dean and Great Oaks Professor of Marketing at the Fogelman College of Business & Economics at the University of Memphis, as well as Chair of the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management. Dr. Stafford is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Advertising, past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Advertising, Past-President of the American Academy of Advertising and the 2016 recipient of the AAA’s Ivan Preston Award for Outstanding Contribution to Advertising Research. She is also a two-time recipient of the University of Memphis Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Research in Business and Social Sciences, and in 2018, she was recognized as one of the Superwomen in Business by the Memphis Business Journal. She is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Advertising Research and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. Dr. Stafford’s research has been published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Decision Sciences, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising Research, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and numerous other publications.

Before earning her Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Georgia, Dr. Stafford held positions with companies such Tupperware Worldwide, Philip Crosby Associates, and Cardinal Industries.

Dr. Stafford research focuses on Advertising, Consumer Behavior and Sustainability. Stafford as well research Responsible Gambling and Health Messaging specifically for Cannabis Marketing.

Principal Study: Advertising; Consumer Behavior; Sustainability; Responsible Gambling; Health Messaging; Cannabis Marketing.