Executive Committee

DIVISION HEAD

E-mail address: eunjink@usc.edu

DIVISION VICE-HEAD

Dr. Chen Lou is an Associate Professor in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research focuses on the effects of social media advertising and consumer behavior. She has examined the effects and mechanisms of a variety of social media advertising, including influencer advertising, content marketing, and cross-cultural advertising, as well as studying what roles social and psychological factors play in the persuasion process.In 2021, she received the American Academy of Advertising’s (AAA) Mary Alice Shaver Promising Professor Award, which honors a junior faculty member who has demonstrated excellence and innovation in advertising research and teaching. She also gained four Best Article Awards (i.e., Journal of Advertising, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Mass Communication and Society) in various journals as well as many other research awards in conferences. She serves as an Associate Editor in the International Journal of Advertising and the Journal of Interactive Advertising.

E-mail address: chenlou@ntu.edu.sg

RESEARCH CHAIR

Dr. Mengtian (Montina) Jiang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrated Strategic Communication at the University of Kentucky. Her research examines how influencers, celebrities, businesses, and non-profits use branded content for persuasion, focusing on the intersection of advertising effectiveness, emerging technologies, and social responsibility. Her research topics include live-streaming commerce, virtual vs. human influencer marketing, native advertising and disclosure, cause-related marketing, brand activism, celebrity endorsement, and more. Her work has been published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, among others, and presented at numerous national and international conferences. She is an active member of the American Academy of Advertising (AAA), the European Academy of Advertising (EAA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

E-mail address: mengtian.jiang@uky.edu

RESEARCH CHAIR-ELECT

Dr. Samuel M.Tham is an Associate Professor of strategic communication and advertising in the department of Journalism and Media Communication at Colorado State University. As a media psychologist, Tham’s research interests lies in the domain of digital advertising, ad avoidance, and problematic media use especially in video gaming. He is interested in understanding processes of media engagement, and developing ethical advertising messaging for vulnerable populations that are susceptible to problematic media use. His published research looks at the intersection of digital advertising, problematic media use, and mental and social health. Prior to academia, Tham worked in the advertising and public relations industry for over a decade, first as a founder of his online gaming company, then as an advertising account executive, and later in corporate communications. His return to academia after a successful industry career was driven towards mentoring students and developing their research toward careers in academia and industry. He is currently the associate editor for the Journal of Communication Technology.

E-mail address: samuel.tham@colostate.edu

TEACHING AND PEDAGOGY CHAIR

Dr. Anastasia Kononova is an Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising & Public Relations at Michigan State University. Kononova does research in advertising and media psychology with the focus on ICT use disparities, ad-context processing, and consumer buying of counterfeit goods. She teaches Ph.D. theory courses,  as well as digital analytics, media planning for creatives, and DEI in PR and advertising to master’s and undergraduate students. Kononova is a graduate director in the department. She’s worked with and mentored dozens of graduate and undergraduate students. 

E-mail address: kononova@msu.edu

SPECIAL TOPICS CHAIR

Dr. Juliana Fernandes (Ph.D. University of Florida, 2010) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. Dr. Fernandes is an expert in the uses and effects of negative information in persuasive communication messages and how social and traditional media are used as strategic tools during political campaigns. She has published academic articles in top advertising and mass communication journals (Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, Journal of Promotion Management, Mass Communication & Society, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journalism, Journalism Practice, American Behavioral Scientist, Communication Studies, Environmental Communication, among others) and has several book chapters in edited collections. She has mentored several undergraduate and graduate students on a variety of research and professional projects. Her teaching philosophy centers on the link between conceptual foundation, research, and practice in advertising. She believes that good advertising practice cannot be achieved without a strong conceptual foundation and research expertise. In 2023, she received the AEJMC Advertising Division Distinguished Teaching Excellence Award. To learn more about Dr. Fernandes, please visit her website: www.julianafernandes.com.

E-mail address: juliana@jou.ufl.edu 

COMMUNICATIONS CHAIR

Dr. Yanyun 'Mia' Wang (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Design at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research examines how emerging media technologies, particularly Virtual and Augmented Reality, influence consumer perception, emotional response, and decision-making across advertising and communication contexts. She also studies AI-driven recommender systems with a focus on trust, user experience, and decision confidence, with recent work highlighting children as an overlooked yet critical user group. Her work has appeared in journals such as New Media & Society, Computers in Human Behavior, and Journal of Marketing Communications. In addition to research, she develops and teaches an AI and Advertising course and brings professional experience in video production and commercial content creation to her teaching in advertising strategy and digital persuasion. She has been actively involved with AEJMC as a reviewer, presenter, and panel moderator, and has served on the Advertising Division’s Graduate Student Scholarship Committee. She now serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Communication Technology. 

E-mail address: mia.wang@colorado.edu

PROFESSIONAL FREEDOM & RESPONSIBILITY (PF&R) CHAIR AND SECRETARY

Dr. Anan Wan (Ph.D., University of South Carolina) is an Associate Professor of Advertising & Public Relations at Kansas State University. Her research examines emerging media technologies, influencer culture, consumer well-being, and the implications of AI in advertising. She has received the American Academy of Advertising’s Research Fellowship Award (2025) and the European Advertising Academy’s Research Grant (2021), and was invited to present her work on media technologies and consumer well-being at the University of Cambridge. At Kansas State, she has mentored graduate theses and research projects while advising the university’s AAF chapter. A long-standing member of AEJMC’s Advertising Division, she has served as reviewer, discussant, panelist, and as a member of the WMSF Graduate Research Scholarship Sub-Committee. She is also a 2025 Visiting Professor with the Association of National Advertisers Educational Foundation (AEF).

E-mail address: anan@ksu.edu

GRADUATE STUDENT CHAIR

Dr. Quan Xie (Ph.D., Ohio University) is an Associate Professor of Advertising at the Temerlin Advertising Institute, Southern Methodist University. Her research explores how emerging technologies and digital media shape branding and consumer experiences, with emphasis on AI in advertising, NFT marketing, and influencer marketing. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Advertising, and Journal of Advertising Research. A two-time recipient of the American Academy of Advertising’s Research Fellowship, her scholarship has also earned AAA’s Best DEI Conference Paper Award, the Broadcast Education Association’s Top Research Paper Award, and the Journal of Interactive Advertising’s Best Article of the Year Award. She currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Interactive Advertising and the Journal of Global Marketing and is an Education Board member of AAF Dallas. An active member of AEJMC since 2017, she has contributed as a presenter, moderator, panelist, mentor, and twice as a member of the Advertising Division’s Graduate Student Scholarship Committee.

E-mail address: quanxie@mail.smu.edu

GRADUATE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE

Wenwen Cao is a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.  Her research focuses on advertising, particularly in influencer marketing, gender, emotion and computational communication. Wenwen's master’s thesis explored how femvertising influences consumer purchase intentions, brand attitudes, and gender consciousness in China. She has presented her research at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), where she won Third Place in the Student Research Competition in the advertising division.

E-mail address: cao00428@umn.edu