The Annenberg School Welcomes Seven New Ph.D. Students to Its 2026 Cohort

The Annenberg School for Communication proudly welcomed its newest cohort of doctoral students this week. The seven students in our 2026 cohort bring a wide variety of research interests and experiences to the program.

Many of our new students research political communication. Jillian Pizza examines how digital platforms and algorithmic recommendation systems influence the production, dissemination, and consumption of political information, with a particular interest in how conspiratorial ideas migrate from fringe spaces into mainstream political discourse. Her previous research examined the relationship between campaign rhetoric and legislative behavior in the U.S. House of Representatives by comparing ideological positions derived from campaign text and roll-call voting. Michael Brumm is interested in what happens to political information when it enters the late-night joke machine. Drawing on his experience as a Senior Producer and Writer for "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," he studies how television production decisions transform news into comedy, and what that transformation means for public understanding.

Krystal (Monroe) Egbuchunam, Wanting Wang, and Shana Kleiner are all interested in how citizens navigate complex online environments made even more complicated by evolving AI technology. Kleiner, former Assistant Director of SAFELab, researches femme online identity performance, particularly regarding resilience and coping strategies. As a previous policy analyst for a nonprofit providing legal services for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, she has expertise with qualitative research methods, advocacy for survivors, and knowledge translation. Egbuchunam studies how online algorithms and generative AI encode bias, influence user trust, and impact marginalized populations. Building on previous research on how algorithmic content curation shapes identity and perpetuates stereotypes online, he aims to develop practical interventions to support ethical AI development, algorithmic fairness, and more equitable technology design. Wang investigates how social media practices, AI-mediated discourses, and aesthetic judgments reshape meaning-making, social distinction, and human experience across cultural contexts. She is interested in AI-based fortune-telling as a digital ritual among Chinese youth, fandom hashtag communities as sites of performative authority and affective mobilization, and hospice care localization as a question of culture, ethics, and intervention.

Both Sakyra Abbitt and Soumya Vats are interested in how digital tools and corporate systems affect mass communication and cultural production. Abbitt examines how Black joy, Black humor, and Black nostalgia online show how Black communities imagine and sustain belonging, with a particular focus on how Black women’s creative practices reshape digital communities. Some of her previous research includes examinations of Black literary communities on TikTok and Black women’s social positioning and representations on Black reality television. Vats studies how the interaction between corporatized global streaming platforms and Bollywood’s established ecosystem affects gender representation in Bollywood’s production cultures, viewing the film industry as both a workplace and a site of production that negotiates with gender norms. Vats previously worked in content testing in Mumbai, where she helped develop a test that encourages Indian filmmakers to enhance gender inclusivity at the formative scripting stages.