Graduate Faculty
Our current graduate faculty who accept and advise new MA and PhD students.
We have world-class graduate faculty who are devoted to cutting-edge and scientific research into communication phenomena and mentoring graduate students to pursue careers in academia, business, and government. In fact, four of our faculty have been named the world’s top 2% scientists by Stanford University. Many have federal, regional, and/or private grants for funded projects. Our faculty work closely with graduate students, who have had great success in presenting at national and international conferences, publishing in high-impact journals, and securing positions at prestigious institutions – a testament to the collaborative environment for professional development that we have built at UB.
Laura M. Arpan, Professor
Expertise: Environmental Communication and Persuasion
Dr. Arpan’s research examines attitudes and persuasion; responses to pro-environmental and health messages; motivated reasoning; and adoption of alternative energy sources & sustainable energy technologies.
Thomas H. Feeley, Professor
Expertise: Health Communication and Social Influence Processes
Dr. Feeley’s research interest is focused on health communication processes in applied contexts such as organ donation and transplantation.
Mark G. Frank, Professor
Expertise: Nonverbal Communication and Deception
Dr. Frank specializes in nonverbal communication with a focus on understanding the complexities of facial expressions and deception in meaningful real-world settings.
Melanie C. Green, Professor and Department Chair
Expertise: Media Effects
Dr. Green's research focuses on narrative persuasion, with topics ranging from health communication to social issues. She also studies the effect of social media and computer-mediated communication on interpersonal relationships.
Lindsay Hahn, Assistant Professor
Expertise: Media Psychology, Media Effects, Morality
Dr. Hahn investigates the impact of morally-charged media on audiences' attitudes and behaviors across a range of contexts from children's social development to violent extremist radicalization.
Junhao Hong, Professor
Expertise: International, Intercultural, and Media/New Media Studies
Dr. Hong's research focuses on global communication issues, relationships between media and society, and how media formations and impact of new media differ in different societies, particularly related to Asian countries.
David Lee, Assistant Professor
Expertise: Interpersonal Communication and Social Media
Dr. Lee's research examines the impact of social interactions and relationships on well-being and health. He also studies the antecedents and consequences of social media use.
Yotam Ophir, Associate Professor
Expertise: Media Effects, Misinformation and Computational Social Science
Dr. Ophir's research focuses on media effects and persuasion, combining novel computational tools for automated content analysis with experimental and survey designs; to study media content and its effects on audiences, primarily in the area of political and scientific misinformation.
Arthur A. Raney, Professor
Expertise: Media Effects and Entertainment Media
Dr. Raney’s research examines how and why we enjoy and appreciate media entertainment, with specific attention to the role morality and moral emotions play in those processes.
Lance Rintamaki, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Expertise: Health Communication
Dr. Rintamaki’s research interests focus on communication in the management of chronic illnesses.
Michael Stefanone, Professor and Director of Singapore Program
Expertise: Computer-Mediated Communication
Dr. Stefanone’s research interests include interpersonal, group, and computer-mediated communication. His research explores off- and online social networks and social media use.
Kelly Tenzek, Assistant Professor
Expertise: Interpersonal and Health Communication
Dr. Tenzek’s research interests include interpersonal and health communication, primarily focusing on aging and end-of-life communication issues.
Frank Tutzauer, Associate Professor
Expertise: Interpersonal Communication
Dr. Tutzauer’s research interests include bargaining and negotiation, communication networks, and mathematical modeling of communication processes.
Hua (Helen) Wang, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Expertise: Social and Behavior Change Communication, Health Communication and Technology
Dr. Wang’s research focuses on the power of storytelling, emerging technologies, and communication networks for health promotion and social change, especially in the field of entertainment-education.
Janet Z. Yang, Professor
Expertise: Science, Health, Environmental, and Risk Communication
Dr. Yang’s research centers on the communication of risk information related to science, health, and environmental issues. She is particularly interested in how cognitive and affective evaluations of risk influence individuals’ decision making.
Yini Zhang, Assistant Professor
Expertise: Social Media, Political Communication, and Computational Social Science
Dr. Zhang’s research centers around social media, media ecosystem, and political communication.
Yanmengqian (Alison) Zhou, Assistant Professor
Expertise: Health and Interpersonal communication
Dr. Zhou's research centers on social influence and social support, with a primary focus on the design and impact of persuasive messages aimed at promoting attitude and behavior change across various health and risk contexts.