Dr. Lauren Reichart Smith (Ph.D., University of Alabama) is a professor and the director of research for the Center for Sports Communication and Social Impact at Rowan University. Her research focuses on the effects of sports media on our emotions. This focus has enabled her to complete research that focuses on issues of gender, race, and national identity. She has examined attitudes and perceptions with respect to participation in sport, primarily surrounding transgender athletes, as well as attitudes and perceptions of athlete activism. Lauren has been involved with IACS since her first conference in 2011. She served as the vice chair/chair/past chair of IACS from 2014-2021 and has also served as an officer in the past for Southern States Communication Association and AEJMC. 

Travis R. Bell is an Associate Professor of Digital and Sports Media and the Director of Graduate Programs and Research in the Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications at the University of South Florida. He has published more than 30 journal articles and book chapters and is lead author of CTE, Media, and the NFL. He teaches courses with an emphasis on broadcast journalism, visual storytelling, sports media, and media literacy. Bell’s research interests are in sport and medical communication intersect with race and gender, and he is a documentary filmmaker. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of South Florida, a M.S. in Sport Management from Florida State University, and a B.A. in Radio/TV Broadcasting and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Central Florida. He worked nearly two decades in professional journalism, including 12 years in television news as a multimedia journalist. Bell previously served a five-year term as a Board Member for IACS. Learn more about his research, teaching, and service on his website www.travisrbell.com.

Guy Harrison is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. At UTK, Harrison is also the inaugural director of the Alan and Wendy Wilson Communication and Leadership Academy, a selective, interdisciplinary professional development opportunity available to students in the university’s colleges of communication and business. His research explores representations of gender and race in sports and news media. Harrison’s work has been published in Communication & Sport and Feminist Media Studies, among other journals. His book, On the Sidelines, received the Outstanding Book Award from the National Communication Association’s Communication and Sport Division in 2022. An IACS member since 2016, Harrison served as a member of the organization’s Board of Directors from 2020 to 2023. He also sat as a member at large on the executive board of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) from 2019 to 2021.

Dunja Antunovic (PhD in Mass Communication, Penn State) is an associate professor of sport sociology at the School of Kinesiology and an affiliate faculty with the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Prior to UMN, she was an assistant professor at Bradley University’s Charley Steiner School of Sports Communication. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, sport, and media including coverage, production practices, and social media uses. She also conducts cross-national comparative research on the Olympic and Paralympic Games in multiple countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia. Antunovic has published over 50 journal articles and book chapters; she is co-author of Serving Equality: Feminism, Media, and Women’s Sports (2022, Peter Lang). Antunovic played and coached tennis in Division I and represented Hungary at the World University Games.

Dr. Frauke Hachtmann is a professor and William H. Kearns Chair in Journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research explores the strategic use of emerging media in sport communication as well as complex crisis response advertising. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including the International Journal of Sport Communication, the Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, and the Journal of Advertising Education. She is a member of several journals’ editorial boards and has served as head of the AEJMC Advertising Division, research chair of the American Academy of Advertising, and associate dean and graduate chair in her college. A former Division-1 athlete at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln she worked in sports marketing before joining the academy

Daniel Kilvington is a Professor in Media and Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University. His teaching and research focuses on ‘race’, racism and anti-racism in sport and new media contexts. He is widely published in academic journals, and is author of six books, including Sport, Racism and Social Media (2015), Sport and Discrimination (2017) and Online Research Methods in Sport Studies (2019). He is the co-founder of the annual Sport and Discrimination Conference series, and has presented a number of keynote papers at academic and industry events. He has secured significant external funding for research with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the British Academy (BA) and Innovate UK, and has undertaken research collaborations with stakeholders including the English Premier League (EPL), Kick It Out, Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE), The English Cricket Board (ECB), The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), to name but a few. Across these externally funded collaborations he has generated significant impact through the development of new EDI related policies and the creation of anti-discriminatory educational resources for stakeholders.    

Nicky Lewis is an Associate Professor of Communication Science in The Media School at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her program of research centers on how individuals’ media choices and exposure influence cognitive and emotional responses to content (mostly in sports and entertainment contexts). Her 30 peer-reviewed journal articles have been published in outlets including Journal of Communication, Communication & Sport, Health Communication, Mass Communication and Society, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Media Psychology, and Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. She currently serves on the editorial boards for Communication & Sport and Communication Research Reports. Prior to academia, she was a sports producer and training coordinator at several Cincinnati television stations. As a sports producer, she edited and produced nightly sports broadcasts and a weekly sports show. As a training coordinator, she taught television production workshops for the community and led several after school video clubs for local students.

Joseph McGlynn (Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin) is an associate professor in the
Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Texas. His research focuses on health communication and risk perceptions in sport contexts, identifying factors that influence attitudes toward risks and risk judgments. He has served in various administrative and leadership roles within the discipline of Communication Studies. At the national level, McGlynn is the current Vice Chair and Program Planner for the Communication and Sport Division of the National Communication Association. At the University of North Texas, McGlynn is the Chair of the Student Media Committee, the Awards Committee, and the Vice-Chair of the Personnel Affairs Committee.

Ariel Newell is a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She researches the impact of sports on culture and society through critical feminist perspectives. Her work emphasizes inclusivity in sports and media, sports activism, and amplifying marginalized voices globally. She received her Bachelors and Masters of Arts  in Liberal Studies for Education and Communication Studies from Califiornia State Univeristy of San Bernardino. She has presented her work at national and international conferences. Newell has attended conferences including IACS, ICA, NCA, and other interdisciplinary conferences.

Dr. Angela Pratt (B.A., Campbell University, NC, USA; M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA; Ph.D., University of Tennessee, USA) is a Teaching Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. Her pedagogical and research interests include Strategic Communication, Sport Administration, Qualitative Research Methods, Gender and Sport Communication, Experiential Learning, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Sport. Prior to her work at UNC-CH, Dr. Pratt was an Assistant Professor in the Sports Studies Department at Bishop’s University (QC, Canada) for three years, an Assistant Professor in the Clemson University (SC, USA) Department of Communication for six years, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Bradley University (IL, USA) for five years. Dr. Pratt’s sports industry experience includes posts as Sports Sales Manager for the Greater Raleigh (NC, USA) Convention and Visitors Bureau, Assistant Director of Marketing for the University of Virginia Department of Athletics (USA), Public Relations Director for the Raleigh (NC, USA) Capital Express (USISL A-League soccer), and Media Relations Intern for the Charlotte Hornets (NBA). 

Brody J. Ruihley is a Professor of Sport Leadership and Management at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He holds a PhD in Sport Studies with a concentration in Sport Management from the University of Tennessee, an MS in Sport Administration from the University of Louisville, and a BA in Communication from the University of Kentucky. His primary research is in the area of fantasy sport and public relations in sport. Brody has been serving IACS since 2010. 

Molly Yanity (Ph.D., Ohio University) is a professor of journalism and sports journalism at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. She also serves as department chair and director of the graduate programs in journalism and sports journalism. She is a two-time, previous chair of AEJMC’s sport communication interest group. In 2021, Yanity collaborated with Dr. Danielle Coombs to edit, write and publish “2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Media, Fandom, and Soccer’s Biggest Stage.” She has been published in several journals and edited collections. During the 2019 WNBA season, she covered the Connecticut Sun for The Athletic. Before her career in higher education, Yanity was a full-time sports writer on the West Coast for 15 years. She prioritizes teaching over research and her syllabuses, lessons and reading lists can be found at mollyyanity.com.