The Premier School For Journalism, Media & Integrated Marketing Communications

Beth Bennett is associate dean and professor of journalism at Medill. She is an award-winning producer and reporter with more than 15 years of experience in broadcast television news and video production. Her experience spans many areas of television news, including on-air reporting, studio/booth producing, and field producing. Since leaving the broadcast industry, she has worked in short-form video production and independent documentary film work.

Vijay Viswanathan is associate dean and Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of integrated marketing communications at Medill. His research focuses on consumer decision making, especially in the realm of branding, pricing, cross-media consumption and social influence. His research has important implications for the economic impact of managerial decisions related to brand architecture, loyalty programs, consumer engagement and omnichannel strategy.

Stephanie Edgerly is an associate professor with a specialization in audience insight. She is also director of research at Medill. Her research explores how features of new media alter the way audiences consume news and impact political engagement. She is particularly interested in the mixing of news and entertainment content, how individuals and groups create and share news over social networking websites, and how audiences selectively consume media.

Jeremy Gilbert is the Knight Professor of Digital Media Strategy. Both his work and teaching focus on the content and revenue strategies of existing and emerging media companies. He explores the intersection of technology and media, examining how new tools and techniques will affect the creation, consumption and distribution of media.

Michelle Weinberger is an associate professor at Medill. She earned her Ph.D. in marketing with a minor in cultural sociology. Weinberger’s research takes a sociological approach to understanding consumers, stakeholders and marketplace actors. She studies socio-cultural aspects of consumption and the role of various forms of marketing communications in creating meaning for stakeholders.

Ernest Duplessis is a former SVP of Corporate Communications and Government Affairs with Mondelēz International in Deerfield, Illinois. Ernest’s career includes over 25 years of Public Relations, Internal and External Communications, Investor Relations and Government Affairs experience spanning corporate America and the U.S. Military.

Debbie Cenziper is an associate professor and the director of investigative reporting at Medill. She is also the graduate journalism Medill Investigative Lab Specialization leader. Besides teaching, Cenziper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and nonfiction author who writes for ProPublica.

Christopher Benson, a journalist and lawyer, is an associate professor of journalism. As a professional journalist, Benson has worked as Washington editor for Ebony magazine, city hall reporter in Chicago for WBMX-FM, and as a contributor for The Chicago Reporter, writing a weekly online column on justice, race and media issues. Additionally, he has contributed feature articles to Chicago, Savoy, and The Crisis magazines, and has contributed commentary to The Huffington Post, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Steven W. Thrasher is the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting (with an emphasis on issues relevant to the LGBTQ community) and an assistant professor of journalism. He is the author of "The Viral Underclass" about the vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses. Thrasher has worked as writer-at-large at the Guardian, staff writer at the Village Voice, and facilitator for the NPR StoryCorps project. His articles are regularly published in the New York Times, BuzzFeed News, Esquire, the Nation, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Daily Beast. He’s also a former researcher for Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.”

Ashlee Humphreys is an associate professor at Medill. Trained as a sociologist, she examines core topics in consumer behavior and marketing strategy. Her research investigates the role of legal and cultural institutions in creating markets, the influence of language on consumer judgments of legitimacy, and the process of consumer co-creation.

Tim Franklin is senior associate dean, professor and John M. Mutz Chair in Local News. Before joining Medill in June 2017, Franklin was the president of The Poynter Institute, a leading international school for journalists and a media think tank. Franklin has been the top editor of three metropolitan newspapers, The Indianapolis Star, Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun. His newsrooms won numerous national journalism awards.