University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications

Daniel Axelrod

Daniel grew up in Rocky Point, NY. He holds a bachelor’s in history and communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in Magazine, Newspaper and Online Journalism from Syracuse University. In August 2011, Daniel began pursuing a Ph.D., with a concentration in print journalism.

From 2004-09, Daniel worked as a full-time newspaper reporter, most recently with The Times-Tribune in Scranton, PA, before spending two years as a public relations specialist for Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania. During his five years as a print journalist, Daniel worked as a general assignment reporter in addition to covering beats in education, municipal government and health care. From 2004-09, Daniel won 14 newspaper journalism awards from state press associations in New York, New England and Pennsylvania. His stories examined the rising number of opiate addicts in Northeastern Pennsylvania, investigated development in the Poconos and spotlighted the effects from years of taxpayers under-funding schools in Plymouth, MA.

Daniel also is a dedicated member of the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2009, he was recruited to attend SPJ’s Ted Scripps Leadership Institute in Indianapolis. From 2009 to 2011, he was president of SPJ’s Keystone (Penn.) Pro Chapter. In September 2010, SPJ honored the chapter for being one of the Society's top three small chapters in the U.S.

Among his other recent accomplishments, Daniel was a fellow in The Knight Digital Media Center’s May 2010 “Multimedia Reporting and Convergence Workshop” at UC Berkeley. And, from 2009-10, Daniel was vice chairman of SPJ’s national Digital Media Committee, for which he wrote the strategic report, “Will SPJ Remain Relevant in the Digital Age?”

Dae-Hee Kim

Dae-Hee Kim is a doctoral student with a specialization in advertising. Before pursuing the doctoral degree, he worked as a brand consultant and account planner at Oricom, the first and one of biggest advertising agencies in South Korea. He also worked as a lecturer and taught advertising, marketing, and consumer behavior courses at several universities in South Korea. Since joining at the University of Florida, he has been teaching Advertising Strategy. His research interests are in the areas of consumer psychology with a focus on cognitive responses to brand exposures in new media, and signaling effects of social information on consumer behaviors. A numbers of his studies have been presented at AEJMC and AAA, and one of the studies was published in Korean Journal of Advertising.

Jaejin Lee

Jaejin Lee is a doctoral student in Advertising. She also received a Master of Advertising in August 2009 from the University of Florida. Jaejin's current research interests include the effects of personal values and the uses of new media including eWOM and online communities in Social (Cause) Marketing.

Jaejin's work has appeared in scholarly journals such as The Web Journal of Mass Communication Research, and several articles are currently under review. She also has presented her research at various referred conferences including those of the American Academy of Advertising (AAA) and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), among others.

She taught Principle of Advertising classes, and is now co-teaching Advertising Strategy and Great Ideas in Advertising, the latter of which deals with building a campaign strategy in working with clients like AT&T, Chevrolet, and IMG World.

Jaejin's research and teaching ability are enhanced by professional work experience as an assistant manager in the headquarters of Samsung Electronics. Part of her job responsibilities were evaluating the global and regional marketing proposals for appropriation, and approving the allocation of funds.

Paul Braun

Paul Braun is a third-year Ph.D. student and holds a B.A. in English, M.B.A., and M.A.s in History, English, and Journalism. His research concerns how journalism blends virtually unnoticed into fictional writing and the way history reflects unbeknownst contemporaneous events that shaped writers’ stories during their era. Paul’s study also takes in Florida history, Cuban history, and Caribbean literature and culture, inspired from his 20 years’ experience as a ship’s captain throughout the islands.

Since entering the Ph.D. program Paul has presented more than a dozen scholarly papers at national and international conferences. Paul’s “The Outside Story: The Great Gatsby as Journalism” received first-place honor at the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association, 2009, Boston. Paul has presented scholarly works at many venues including the Centre for Comparative Studies at the University of Lisbon, Portugal; the Athens Institute for Education & Research, Greece; the Australian Historical Association Biennial Conference at the University of Western Australia, Perth; and the "Popular History and Histories of Popular Culture" conference hosted by the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand in Sydney, Australia.

Jeff Neely

Jeff Neely is a Ph.D. candidate and University of Florida Alumni Fellow with teaching and research interests focused on media ethics, online social networks, virtual worlds, youth journalism and community. As a working journalist, Jeff has written for TBO.com (the converged news website operation of The Tampa Tribune), the St. Pertersburg Times, the NASA website and other online and print publications. He also served as the managing editor for Focus, a community news magazine in the Tampa Bay area.

Jeff has taught both journalism ethics and feature writing in the College of Journalism and Communications. In addition, he has demonstrated himself as a productive scholar, with sole-authored and collaborative research producing three scholarly publications and nine conference presentations.

Anabell Iglesias

A second year master's student, Anabell is a Fulbright Fellow from El Salvador who is enrolled in the International/Intercultural track of our Mass Communications program. She holds a dual degree in Business and Economics and an M.B.A with a focus in international business. After 12 years in international marketing and business development with Unilever and International Paper, and a gap period of travelling and volunteering, she came to UF driven by her passion for cross cultural studies.

While at UF, Anabell's research has concentrated in the various applications of international communications, leading her to internships with Discovery Networks Latin America/US Hispanic and The International Council of the Tampa Bay Region, a U.S. Dept. of State partner. Her project in lieu of thesis is titled, "A Media Relations Application of Social Media for Public Relations and Corporate Communications in Latin America."

Anabell has been the recipient of an 'Outstanding International Student Award' by the University of Florida, and of a 'Certificate of Outstanding Academic Achievement' by the University of Florida International Center.

Donna Z. Davis

Donna, a 20-year veteran in the communications field, is a third-year Ph.D. student, and is also the host and senior producer of the award-winning Family Album Radio – a daily radio module based on current family social science research. She has co-hosted a weekly, financial call-in radio program, she’s been the voice of many WUFT-TV fund drives and is that mysterious female voice on many interactive Microsoft tutorials. She holds an undergraduate degree in journalism and an M.S. in Family, Youth and Community Sciences.

Donna’s research focuses on digital social capital in virtual worlds. She has presented her work at various domestic and international conferences.

Linda Hallam

The College is saddened to report that Linda Hallam passed away on March 29, 2011.

Linda is a second-year Ph.D. student, and has served as an editor for Better Homes & Gardens, Decorating and Design, Traditional Home, and Southern Living magazines. She is the author and editor of 21 books, and currently writes freelance articles for the Gainesville Sun, Gainesville Magazine and several other publications. Linda holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in public administration. Currently she is pursuing the public health certificate program along with her doctoral studies.

Linda’s research focuses on health communication and she is currently studying the visual, content and advertising health and fitness messages women receive from mainstream general interest, health and fitness magazines.

Sun-Young Park

Sun-Young is a doctoral student with an emphasis in advertising. She has served as an account executive in South Korea working with such clients as Hyundai, Kia Motors and LG Electronics.

Sun-Young’s research focuses on health communications.  She has presented a number of papers at AEJMC and AAA, and has won the best student paper award at the 2009 AMHCR (Association for Marketing and Health Care Research) conference for her paper, “Got vaccine? A framing analysis of the newspaper coverage of the measles outbreak.”

Paula Rausch

Paula, a former public relations professional and award-winning journalist, is a doctoral candidate focusing on health communication who also obtained a Certificate in Public Health. She has been involved extensively in research, including on NIH- and Veterans Affairs-funded projects, and her work has resulted in publications, presentations and three awards. Her research focuses on exploring the influence that medical information in the media, especially e-media, has on health consumers.

Paula has taught courses in public relations, nontraditional media, journalism and mass communication. She also has participated in international pursuits, including as a program assistant for the College’s Study Abroad program, and with communication projects in Ethiopia and Nicaragua.