Two of Merrill’s faculty members have been promoted, effective at the start of the new academic year. Dr. Susan Moeller has been promoted to professor from associate professor and Dr. Carol Rogers has achieved the rank of professor of the practice.
Dr. Rogers, who just stepped down from long-time service as the college’s director of doctoral and research programs, has been on the faculty since 1994. As the former head of the Office of Communications for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Rogers specializes in science journalism and communication. She also served as the editor for the journal Science Communication. The University employs the title professor of the practice for individuals who have demonstrated excellence in the practice, and leadership, of specific fields. In granting the title, the University agrees with the College that Dr. Rogers has attained national and international prominence in the field of science journalism, and that she has demonstrated superior teaching ability.
Dr. Moeller has built quite a track record of achievement since she joined the College as an assistant professor in 2001. Last year she won one of the prestigious Carnegie Scholar awards, which provided a $100,000 grant to study how the media report the intersection of Islam and terrorism. She was also honored by the Board of Regents with a Regents’ Faculty Award for teaching in 2008. She founded the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA), and was founder and is the lead faculty member of the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. Her most recent book, Packaging Terrorism: Co-opting the News for Politics and Profit, was published by Wiley-Blackwell last year. Before joining Merrill, Susan was director of the journalism program at Brandeis, taught at Princeton and Pacific Lutheran University, and was a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.
