UC San Diego
Department of Communication
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Laurel FriedmanLaurel Friedman

Email address: lfriedman@ucsd.edu
Website: www.laurelfriedman.com

Education
  • PhD Candidate, Communication, University of California, San Diego
  • MA, Communication, University of California, San Diego, 2009
  • BA, Liberal Studies with Distinction, University of South Florida, 2005. Concentrations: Anthropology, Communication, Photography
  • AS, Photography, South East Center of Photographic Studies at Daytona State College, 2001
Research:

As a trained photographer with an interdisciplinary background that bridges art and the social sciences, my research is situated at the intersection of disability studies, health communication, and visual culture studies. My scholarly interest in illness emanates from my own experience of serious illness as a young adult, which led me to approach healing through the multidisciplinary lenses of photography, anthropology, and communication. My dissertation considers the intersection of personal narrative and public discourse regarding tuberculosis and current efforts to treat and contain the disease in Southern California.  It examines the shifting stories defining TB across time and place in order to better understand the conditions particular to San Diego County’s position as a border region with an increasingly diverse population and contributes to ongoing debates regarding what constitutes effective detection, treatment, and advocacy.

Teaching Experience
  • Instructor: Introduction to Communication and Culture
  • Co Instructor: Journalism: Writing and Reporting the News (University of California San Diego’s Academic Connections Program)
  • Teaching Assistant: Archive of Anorexia; Introduction to Communication; Methods of Media Production; Communication and Culture; Advertising and Society; Television and the Public; Critical Writing
Professional Experience:
  • Graduate Research Assistant, Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, University of California, San Diego (Fall 2012-Spring 2013). Member of a research team developing an internet portal charting a history of LCHC and its contributors and offering resources for researchers and students.
  • Social and Behavioral Researcher, Department of Child and Family Studies, University of South Florida (Spring 2004-Summer 2007): Conducted research on cultural competence in children’s mental health. Responsibilities included literature reviews; data collection and analysis; interview transcription and cross-interview analysis; written reports and presentation of findings at national research conferences.
  • Program Development, Department of Child and Family Studies, University of South Florida (Spring 2004-Summer 2007): Responsible for coordinating and assisting in the development of distance learning graduate certificate coursework in children’s mental health. Fulfilled TA role for several distance-learning courses, including: Cultural Competence in Children’s Mental Health, Financing for MH Services, Interdisciplinary Systems of Care, and Child Mental Health Services.
  • Research Consultant, National Alliance of Multi-Ethnic Behavioral Health Associations (Spring 2004 and Fall 2005): Conducted multi-phased content analysis of literature related to service use for racial/ethnic minorities with emotional/behavioral disorders to identify culturally appropriate evidence-based practices. Products included written reports and presentations of results at national research conference.