Nathan Carpenter, Ph.D.

Director - Atlas Social Media Listening Lab

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As the inaugural director, Carpenter is responsible for leading the lab’s operations, insights/analysis, and engagement with key stakeholders. He facilitates research, instruction and immersion opportunities, external partnerships around social media listening and engagement, and grant funding. Carpenter also also provides thought leadership around social media listening data collection and strategy to academic and professional communities.

Previously, Carpenter was director of Convergent Media for the School of Communication at Illinois State University, where he created and directed the University’s Social Media Analytics Command Center.

At Illinois State, Carpenter redesigned and taught a course on emerging communication technologies that included social media analytics as a major course objective. He regularly guest lectured on social media analytics and listening techniques for public relations, mass media, journalism, and general communication studies courses. He also managed a social media analytics internship and independent studies program, which contracted student-driven social media listening and strategy projects for organizations such as the Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois State University Athletics, the United Way of McLean County, OmniSeq Immuno-Oncology, and Univision Chicago.

Prior to joining Illinois State in 2013, he was a graduate teaching instructor at Michigan Technological University, where he earned a Ph.D. in 2017 and a Master of Science in Rhetoric and Technical Communication in 2007.

Since beginning his university-level teaching career, Carpenter has taught more than 50 courses in topics such as multimodal composition, popular culture, media studies, leadership studies, speech communication, technology studies, and social media strategy. Recent studies involving his analytics work have appeared in journals including Cultural Studies, Equality Diversity & Inclusion, Self & Identity, and the e-Journal of Public Affairs, and he regularly presents papers and workshops at the National Communication Association, Central States Communication Association, and Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement conferences.

 

Areas of Expertise

Social Media

Education

M.S. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, Michigan Technological University 2007
Ph.D., Michigan Technological University, 2017

 

News

• Three UFCJC faculty and staff receive 2026 Division Three Superior Accomplishment Awards (January 26, 2026)
• Nathan Carpenter and Jieun Shin partner to host virtual ICA Computation Methods Lab Showcase (January 23, 2026)
• Nathan Carpenter comments on current and future trends for Public Relations measurements and analytics (January 15, 2026)
• Nathan Carpenter Co-Authors Article on How Heart Attack Symptoms are Discussed on Social Media (February 25, 2025)
• 7th Annual Brand Bowl Brings Gen Z Insights to Super Bowl Ads (February 10, 2025)
• All News About Nathan Carpenter →