Four New Faculty Members to Join SC&I in Fall 2022
Two of the four new faculty members will join SC&I’s Communication Department, one will join the Journalism and Media Studies Department, and one will join the Library and Information Science Department.
Two of the four new faculty members will join SC&I’s Communication Department, one will join the Journalism and Media Studies Department, and one will join the Library and Information Science Department.

SC&I is pleased to welcome the following four scholars who will join the faculty in Fall 2022: Jessica Yi-Yun Cheng, Youngrim Kim, Kristina Scharp, and Sarah Shugars. 

Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science Jessica Yi-Yun Cheng

Cheng (she/her) earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Library and Information Science from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan, and her Ph.D. in Information Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in Champaign, IL, in May 2022. The title of her dissertation is, “Agreeing to Disagree: Applying a Logic-based Approach to Reconciling and Merging Multiple Taxonomies.”  

Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Studies Youngrim Kim

Kim (she/her) earned her bachelor’s degree in Media Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, her master’s degree in Communication Studies at Seoul National University, South Korea; and her Ph.D. in Communication and Media from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI in May 2022. Her dissertation is titled: “Databasing Latent Bodies: Disease Surveillance, Data Publics, and Coded Injustice in South Korea.”

Associate Professor of Communication Kristina M. Scharp 

Scharp (she/her) earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, in International Studies/German, and her master’s degree and Ph.D. (2014) in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. Her dissertation is titled, “(De)Constructing family: Exploring communicative practices in accomplishing and maintaining estrangement between adult children and their parents.” From 2015- 2018 she was an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies in Utah State University’s Department of Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies. From 2018-2021 she was an Assistant Professor of Communication in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, and in 2021 she became an Associate Professor of Communication in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington.

Assistant Professor of Communication Sarah Shugars

Shugars (they/them) earned their bachelor’s degree from Clark University, Worcester, MA., in Physics, their master’s degree from Emerson College, Boston, MA, in Integrated Marketing Communication, and their Ph.D. in 2020 from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, in Network Science, Political Science Track. Their dissertation is titled, “Reasoning Together: Network Methods for Political Talk and Normative Reasoning.” Currently, they are an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at the Center for Data Science at New York University, and a Research Fellow in the School of Media and Public Affairs, Twitter Healthy Conversations Project, at George Washington University.  

More information about the Rutgers School of Communication and Information is on the website. 

Banner photo: Pictured from left to right are Cheng, Kim, Scharp, and Shugars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to top