Technology and Innovation

Jill Blackman’s expertise includes the study of digital trends and the evolution of social media in journalism. She focuses on storytelling through innovative digital techniques, including interactive data visualizations, explanatory animations, mapping and various programming languages.

Chris Cahill's experience and perspective relates to the practical application of marketing analytics in specific corporate situations and industries; such as the implications of implementing a credit-offer selection algorithm by a retail bank.

Gerry Chiaro is associate professor and director of IMC Immersion Quarter with a long background in business, specifically marketing leadership. His expertise: Brand Strategy Leadership, and Consulting. Gerry has developed nearly 250 team consulting projects for our graduate students.

He joined the faculty in January 2009 and earned a full-time appointment in 2012.

Jonathan Copulsky's research focuses on the impact of digital disruption and innovative technologies on brand-customer interactions. He is the co-author of two critically acclaimed books on digital disruption (The Technology Fallacy and The Transformation Myth). He also researches and writes about the evolution of business-to-business marketing.

Kelly Cutler has more than 20 years of experience with digital marketing and digital media. Her work focuses on the areas of search marketing, social media marketing, programmatic, retargeting and digital analytics and measurement. She works in both theory and practice.

Craig Duff's long career in video journalism spans broadcast/cable news, long-form television, documentary filmmaking and video on digital platforms (including key roles at the New York Times and TIME). Craig leads the video and broadcast specialization at Medill and has developed a popular course in producing and reporting video for social media.

Abigail Foerstner is an award-winning reporter covering and teaching health, environment and science journalism. She teaches students how to bridge between an increasingly technological culture and general audiences who rely on science journalism to make critical decisions and understand the wonders around them. She teaches multimedia journalism.

Judy Franks' research focuses on the supply of media audience attention that flows into the advertising economy. Franks is also studying how self-serve ad portals are democratizing access for businesses of all sizes. Her book, "Media: From Chaos to Clarity" (2nd Ed) provides history and context for today's digital media world and where it's headed.

Jeremy Gilbert's work and research focuses on the content and revenue strategies of existing and emerging media companies. He explores the intersection of technology and media, employing a human-centered design process to examine how new tools and techniques will affect the creation, consumption and distribution of media.

Neil Golden is an active business and marketing leader with a track record of helping organizations strengthen financial and brand performance. His expertise spans the restaurant/food, alcoholic beverage, real estate, active recreation and online education areas.

Rich Gordon launched Medill’s graduate program in new media journalism. She has spent most of her career exploring the areas where journalism and technology intersect. She was an early adopter of desktop analytical tools (such as spreadsheets and databases) to analyze data for journalistic purposes.

Desiree Hanford's expertise centers on business, markets and money. She was an equities reporter for Dow Jones Inc. before joining Medill as a faculty member. Her research focus is on activist shareholders and Gen Z motivations in pursuing journalism in a time of media mistrust.

Tom Hayden is a lawyer and an expert in law, policy and ethics related to integrated marketing communications. He also focuses on data governance and privacy.

Randy Hlavac focuses on how entrepreneurs and businesses can use social and community systems to build market share and build stronger relationships with their high-value consumers. He also researches strategies for building business and executive personas that build followers and engage key influencers.

Ashlee Humphreys is a sociologist who examines core topics in consumer behavior and marketing strategy. Her research investigates topics in social media, market creation, language, and digital satisfaction. Humphreys is the author of "Social Media: Enduring Principles," and she is the creator of the Digital Satisfaction Index (DSI).

Candy Lee's work on leadership and the effects of voice in technology are showcased in her research. She also does work on customer retention through loyalty, membership, pricing, display, management, attrition consideration, acquisition and growth strategy. Her focus on sport marketing involves diverse arenas from fandom to sponsorship.

Edward Malthouse's research interests center on customer engagement and experiences; digital, social and mobile media; media management; big data; customer relationship management and lifetime value models; recommender systems; and predictive analytics.

Jon Marshall's research focuses on journalism history and the relationship between presidents and the press, especially investigative journalism. His books include Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis and Watergate's Legacy and the Press: The Investigative Impulse.

Frank Mulhern does research on media economics and technology and its impact on brand communications. His work connects technology to customer data and marketing analytics; particularly with respect to retailing and e-commerce marketing.

Michael Spikes' research is centered on the practice and pedagogy of media literacy education (MLE) and news media literacy (NML) toward encouraging critical thinking to limit the effects of exposure to mis- and disinformation. His focus is on the design, assessment, and enactments of MLE & NML in classrooms and other learning environments.

Vijay Viswanathan studies customer experience and marketing effectiveness in B2C and B2B using surveys, text analytics and machine learning. His current work is on online communities, virtual influencers, loyalty programs and governance. He has given numerous talks to industry on customer centricity, embedding AI in analytics and enabling a data culture.

Zach Wise's research centers on the intersection of technology and journalism. He does iterative applied research in immersive media (AR/VR) and new storytelling forms. Through his work in the Knight Lab at Northwestern, he also creates and directs the creation of storytelling tools that are used by publications all over the world.

Yu Xu is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications and (by courtesy) Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His research interests include media industries and analytics, social and communication networks, organizational change, ecology and evolution, and computational social science. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Communication Monographs, New Media & Society, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Service Management, Political Communication, and Information Communication & Society. He serves on the editorial boards of Human Communication Research and the Journal of Service Management. He teaches courses on digital media strategies and social networks at Medill and is the recipient of the “IMC Teacher of the Year 2022” award.