Meet the Students

Lea Beka

Lea Beka (they/them) is an interdisciplinary queer scholar and artist from Prishtina, Kosovo. Prior to attending the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University, they received a B.A. at James Madison University (JMU) as a film and music double major. During their undergraduate studies, Beka served as a teaching assistant in the communication department. They were distinguished as a Madison Scholar and Outstanding Contributor in Digital Video and Cinema.

Beka’s research work situates film and television in a queer, feminist and BIPOC lens. They are interested in representations of queer pleasure and desire and the ways in which media shapes queer culture. They approach their work through a Marxist and postcolonial perspective, blending intersectionality, culture and social justice. They co-authored and published “‘I’m Michael Jordan, I’m not Malcolm X’: Performing Authentic Black Masculinity in ‘The Boys.’” This November, Beka will be presenting a project on Queer fashion hacking at the National Women’s Studies Association conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Additionally, they will be presenting their project “‘Equal in the Quiet Dark’: Narrative Analysis on Black Queerness, Masculinity, and Power in Interview with the Vampire (2022)” at the National Communication Association conference.

At Syracuse University, Beka serves as the 2026 CRS graduate-faculty liaison and graduate assistant, teaching classes in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies.

Outside of academia, Beka serves as a director and cinematographer on both fiction and non-fiction films. Beka’s work crosses over several different genres with special focus on marginalized youth and subject-based films and has been recognized in film festivals across the globe, including Baby Teeth Film Festival in New York, DocFest in Virginia, Lift Off Film Selection in the United Kingdom, SWAN Perth International Women in Film Festival in Australia and more.

Tasha Bernius

Tasha (Natasha) Bernius is a first-generation student who earned a B.A. in communication studies with minors in classics and women’s studies at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois.

While attending Monmouth College, Bernius began developing their interest in interdisciplinary research by incorporating communication and rhetorical studies with philosophy and gender and women’s studies. Bernius’ current research focuses are varied. They include the analyses of power and identity in popular culture, fascist rhetoric, and topics related to queer and feminist perspectives.

Bernius presented work examining the ways music can be rhetorical through aspects of performance and delivery at the Central States Communication Association Conference (CSCA) in 2025.

Outside of academia, Bernius is an advocate for our National Parks and enjoys exploring in nature. Much of their academic work is influenced by their appreciation and curiosity for the world around them.

Georgie Brown

Georgie Brown (she/her) is from Western Massachusetts. She earned a B.A. in communication from University of Massachusetts Amherst. After graduating, she worked in community engagement for a local nonprofit organization near her hometown.

Her research interests center around discourse and social interaction, especially conversation analysis and using conversation analytic methods to examine questions of identity and representation, with a focus on queer perspectives. Before coming to Syracuse, Brown collaborated on a project examining TikTok “on-the-street” interviews. As part of this project, she presented twice at the National Communication Association (NCA). In 2024, she presented “‘Yes! Let’s go! So ten minutes, yeah?’: Responding to answers in TikTok on-the-street Interviews.” Then, in 2025, she presented “Questioning Heteronormativity in TikTok Interviews.”

Outside of academia, Brown enjoys almost all forms of crafting, hiking and spending time outdoors, and spending time with her cat, Pippi, or her horse, Theo.

Tom Cassara

Tom Cassara is a second year in the CRS program. He takes a highly multidisciplinary approach to scholarship and has consistently taken coursework outside his home department. He is primarily interested in understanding how disinformation spreads online and how it contributes to the rise of minor, segmented internet cults. Cassara’s specialties include fascist rhetoric, conspiratorial rhetoric, surveillance studies, digital discourse and the history of communications technology.

Cassara brings worthwhile experience with him to the program, as both a lecturer and a public speaking coach. This academic year brings with it both his sixth year coaching a public speaking event at his alma mater—Gettysburg College—and his sixth annual invited lecture with Gettysburg’s sociology department on the QAnon movement. Cassara’s passion for teaching is undeniable, and he hopes to one day be an educator at the collegiate level. Cassara also believes research can and must be oriented towards serving the common good and considers public impact his primary objective.

In his free time, Cassara is an avid creative. He loves writing for, and running, Dungeons & Dragons games with his friends and has a slew of associated Pinterest boards. Cassara also loves to cook and to sing, often combining the two as they remind him of being at home with his parents, filling the house with the scents and sounds of tradition, community, and love.

Shameen Fatima

Shameen Fatima’s research focuses on rhetorical criticism, identity and cultural studies, with particular attention to how rhetoric shapes language policies, narratives of grief, trauma and identity. She completed an undergraduate degree at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) in Pakistan, where she graduated with high distinction and later received an offer to join the faculty as a research fellow and lecturer.

Alongside her academic path, Fatima has more than five years of professional experience as a brand strategist and designer, working with organizations in education, entrepreneurship and nonprofit sectors across Pakistan and internationally. She has led projects that included developing communication strategies, creating equity-centered brand identities and designing digital platforms for initiatives such as early literacy programs and community-building organizations.

Her first peer-reviewed publication examined family language policies and heritage language transmission, and she continues to develop research that bridges rhetorical theory with applied practice. Fatima is also the founder of The Disorders Collective, a community platform addressing mental health through public writing and offering support groups in South Asia. As a teaching assistant at Syracuse, she integrates her background in communication design and rhetorical analysis to help students become confident, critical speakers.

Rowan Fox

Rowan Fox graduated with honors in 2025, earning a bachelor’s degree in communications from SUNY Brockport. Her focus as an undergraduate student was oriented towards interpersonal, public and professional communication pertaining to the workplace, along with the study of psychology as her minor. It wasn’t until her senior year that she discovered her interest in philosophy and rhetorical studies, which led her to the CRS master’s program at Syracuse University, where she enjoys serving as a teaching assistant alongside her studies.

She has since developed research interests in algorithmic surveillance and big data, attention economies and post-literacy (particularly studied through the rise of AI), and postfeminism and neoliberalism in contemporary gym culture and online fitness influencer discourse.

Outside of academia, Fox enjoys reading novels, creative writing and poetry, and cooking. She has a strong passion for health and fitness that she has cultivated through many years of sports, her love of strength training, and keeping a balanced dietary lifestyle, which brought her to enjoy studying food and nutrition science as a hobby.

Audrey Hogan

Audrey Hogan recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies and a minor in theology from Loyola University Chicago. Her research focuses on the materiality of places and objects and how this influences our affective and disciplinary relationships with those places and objects. She is also interested in the body and images as sites of negotiation between self and divine in comparative ancient Near Eastern contexts and early Christian history.

Hogan works as a teaching assistant in the department, drawing on a professional history in writing, tutoring and the pedagogical strategies specific to that field.

Outside of class, Hogan loves all things music, fashion and film. She also has an extracurricular interest in psychoanalytic theory, particularly in the field’s Marxist and New Left traditions.

Alexandra Klein

Originally from North Dakota, Alexandra Klein graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, in 2024, where she earned a B.A. in communication studies and global studies.

Her current research interests include right-wing extremist rhetoric, discourse on social media, health rhetoric within the MAHA movement and surveillance. In her undergraduate studies, she presented her research at the Concordia College Celebration of Student Success Symposium (2023 and 2024) and the St. Thomas Undergraduate Communication Research Conference (2023). She plans to submit her work to a few conferences this academic year as well. After completing two internships within New York state campaigns, she plans to dive into the job market after graduation.

In her free time, Klein enjoys playing the French horn, singing, reading dystopian novels and spending quality time with her miniature schnauzer Sochi.

Andrea Moreno

Andrea Moreno is a first-generation student who earned a B.A. (honors) in communication studies and English writing from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. During her undergraduate studies, she was a member of Gonzaga’s debate team, worked as a research assistant and served as a writing tutor.

Moreno’s research interests center on the intersections of Chicanx and Latinx studies, critical and cultural studies, gender studies, and rhetorical studies. Her work is particularly interested in how Chicanx and Latinx representation shapes and complicates understandings of political identity, belonging, and what it means to be human.

Outside of school, Moreno enjoys reading, going to the movies and playing with her cat, Mushu.

Haven Nasif

Haven Nasif (she/her) is a scholar and poet originally from Boulder, Colorado. She earned a B.A. in English with minor concentrations in creative writing and women’s, gender and sexuality studies from the University of Oregon in 2025.

Her research interests primarily focus on global developments in the language of queer disability theory and bodily autonomy. She is particularly fascinated by performance studies and archival work. Nasif has been a performer of dance and poetry since her youth, and this experience has informed her creative approaches toward understanding rhetorics of the body. She also has an extensive background in creating programming around sexual violence prevention and education. She asks, how can nontraditional methods of storytelling effectively connect and preserve social movements? Currently, she serves as a teaching assistant in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies.

Nasif has published poetry in various magazines along the West Coast, including The South Broadway Press Online Journal, Spit Poet Zine and The Oregon Voice. She was a 2023-24 recipient of the Walter and Nancy Kidd Writing Scholarship for Poetry and completed multiple workshops under author Matthew Dickman.

In academic communities, Nasif highly prioritizes intergenerational community building; she was heavily involved with events surrounding Judith Raiskin’s Outliers and Outlaws project connecting lesbians of all ages in Eugene, Oregon. Outside of academia, she enjoys watching old movie musicals, handcrafting zines and hanging out with her cat, Oscar.

Emelie Nonemaker

Emelie Nonemaker (she/her) graduated with distinction from Juniata College in 2025, earning a B.A. in English literature with a secondary emphasis in communication studies.

Her research interests center on the rhetoric of sport, pulling in theories of surveillance and gender. She is currently writing a thesis examining the role that sport is playing in enforcing a strict gender binary in the U.S. She has presented work at the Pop Culture Association (PCA) in 2024 and at the Juniata College Liberal Arts Symposium (2024 and 2025). She has professional experience writing for communication consulting in the political sphere, crafting op-eds and letters to the editor (LTEs) for campaigns, lobbyists and nonprofit organizations. She is currently a teaching assistant in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies.

Outside of her academic work, Nonemaker enjoys running, hiking, and spending time with friends and family.

Hana Novotna

Hana Novotna (she/her) is an M.A. student and teaching assistant in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies. She came to Syracuse after completing a B.A. in communication studies, minoring in critical race and ethnic studies, at Gonzaga University.

Informed by intersectional feminist theory, her research interests include the impacts of housing policy and legislation on marginalized groups, as well as critical interrogation of monogamy discourse, purity culture and normative femininity. Grounded in epistemic critique, her interests focus on how lived experiences across socio-economic, cultural and political spaces inform on-going scholarship and thus complicate traditional, single-axis frameworks.

She has presented research at the Northwest Communication Association Conference (2025, 2026), the Western States Communication Association Conference (2026) and the Eastern States Communication Association Conference (2026).

Post master’s degree, she aims to pursue law school, with the goal of one day doing policy advocacy work within the realm of real estate legislation.

Outside of her studies, she enjoys reading, doing yoga, taking walks, eating seafood boil and drinking boba.

Currently, her book recommendation is “Eloquent Rage” by Brittney Cooper.

Elizabeth Palumbo

Elizabeth Palumbo graduated in 2025 from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She earned a bachelor’s degree in writing and rhetoric with a concentration in language as social action.

Palumbo’s research centers around feminist rhetorics, whiteness and reproductive justice. She has presented at the Modern Language Association (MLA), Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), and will be presenting at the National Communication Association this fall. She is also a member of the 2026 Bedford New Scholars Advisory Board. Palumbo currently works as a teaching assistant in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies and is completing a certificate of advanced study in women and gender studies.

In her free time, Palumbo enjoys being outdoors, reading and spending time with her family.

Andrea Schnarr

Andrea Schnarr graduated in 2021 with an undergraduate degree from Parsons School of Design in strategic design and management. Since then, Schnarr has worked as a content designer and in various roles on and off set in short-format film production. Schnarr brings a uniquely interdisciplinary, design strategy-informed mindset to her work in production and in her academic research. Her areas of research include feminist rhetorics, surveillance studies and performance studies.

Schnarr’s undergraduate capstone, “Reality We Trust,” was selected to be presented at the Parsons BBA Symposium. The capstone revolved around gender, race, technology and debunking our perception of reality television as trash. A deciding factor for Schnarr in committing to the CRS program were the faculty and resources available to further iterate this research.

Apart from watching reality television, Schnarr is an avid yogi with over 400 hours of training. She also writes sketch comedy and loves to see a comedy set or go to live music events with her friends.

Katie Volz

Katie Volz (she/her) holds a B.A. from Mercer University in communication studies and English. Her undergraduate thesis interrogated the intersection of globalization, capitalism and the structure of higher education in order to trace the American mythology of the university “crisis.”

Her current research interests include media studies, queer theory, body studies and affect theory. She is interested in the camera and digital space as a site of commodification and appropriation of the body, as well as questions of ownership and labor pertaining to the digital body.

Volz has three years of professional marketing experience as a videographer, editor and producer. This experience has informed her understanding and approach towards questions of media production and digital image ownership.