Joe Edward Hatfield, assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the U of A, was selected as the 2024 recipient of the Janice Hocker Rushing Early Career Research Award from the Southern States Communication Association.

This award honors SSCA members who have demonstrated exceptional scholarly ability through research and publication early in their academic careers. Nominees must be untenured, assistant professors in the field of communication, and no more than five years shall have passed between nominee's appointment to the rank of assistant professor (or receipt of terminal degree) and the time of the award.

Hatfield has published a total of eight solo and co-authored articles, one invited forum piece, four book chapters and six book reviews in leading journals and groundbreaking edited collections. With two article manuscripts currently under review and others in progress for submission, he continues to build an impressive record of publication as a junior scholar.

Hatfield's research has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including, most recently, the 2022 Dissertation of the Year Award from the GLBTQ Studies Division of the National Communication Association and the 2020 Charles Kneupper Award from the Rhetoric Society of America.

In addition, Hatfield has presented over 40 papers at international, national and regional conferences. Of these presentations, six have received "top paper" designations, while many others were delivered during "top paper" panel sessions.

Hatfield joined the faculty of the Department of Communication in 2020 after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Hatfield's research examines how people use media technologies to communicate their memories and identities. Specifically, he investigates the ways communication, media and memory converge in the public sphere to facilitate a cultural process known as public memory. Across his scholarship, Hatfield shows how technologies of public memory function a source of power and thus a significant site of struggle in ongoing and frequently tumultuous processes of cultural change, joining a lineage of scholars invested in advancing the critical study of public memory within and beyond the communication discipline.

Hatfield is particularly proud to accept the Rushing Award because the honor is named after the late Janice Hocker Rushing, who made her mark as a leader in the fields of rhetorical and media studies during her career as a professor in the Department of Communication at the U of A.

For more information about the Janice Hocker Rushing Early Career Research Award, visit the SSCA website.