Hello! Welcome to my website. I am an Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Sociology, and affiliate faculty member in Gender & Sexuality Studies at Davidson College, a highly selective small liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina.
My Path: I am a Chicana feminist from the Southwest with a long history in New Mexico-Colorado-Texas. I earned my B.A. in 2004 from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, TX, then my M.A. in Mass Communication at the University of Houston – Main Campus; I completed my M.A. and earned a Women’s Studies Graduate Certificate in 2007. I then spent four years at Texas A&M University completing my doctorate in Mass Communication and Health Communication in 2011. I taught at the University of Houston Downtown full time and worked part time as a Research Assistant for a litigation consulting firm for a year post-grad before moving to North Carolina to begin my tenure-track position at Davidson College in 2012. I was awarded tenure in 2018 and then became the Chair of the Communication Studies Department. I am the first tenure-track/tenured professor-scholar in Communication Studies at Davidson College. In my time at Davidson, I have played a pivotal role in growing the department to now include a Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS)-established major in Communication Studies. The Communication Studies minor continues to thrive for going on 10+ years now.
Professional Profile: I teach a variety of Communication Studies courses but my favorites include courses on intercultural communication, mass media effects, and gendered communication in society because they directly intersect with my scholarly research agenda. My research interests reside at the intersection of mass media and health communication with particular focus on intersectionality including race, ethnicity, gender, cultural communication and identities. My recent work focuses on how racial and ethnic stereotypes in entertainment media are framed in entertainment comedy or humorous communication contexts. I am interested in how diverse audiences interpret and respond to stereotypes beyond media effects and how those message perceptions might impact real-world interactions.
I am currently writing my first book. My recent publications appear in Southern Communication Journal (July 2017), Women’s Studies in Communication (April 2017) and Teaching Sociology (July 2017).
I am incredibly privileged to do what I do for a living. I strive to negotiate a reasonable work-life balance routinely. When I’m not in the classroom, in meetings, grading, or writing, I spend my precious free time with family and friends. I enjoy traveling, arts and crafts, photography, reading, coffee, and red wine.
Please feel free to browse the contents in the tabs in the upper right corner of this website. For questions about my work, email me at ammartinez@davidson.edu. Thanks for visiting my website!
