Sonali Kudva
Phone
Address
401 W. Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33606
Meet Sonali Kudva
Professor of Instruction I, Communication
Education:
2000 Fergusson College, University of Pune, B.A.
2001 University of Pune, BCJ
2003 Fergusson College, University of Pune, M.A.
2004 Kent State University, M.A.
2010 Kent State University, M.A.
2019 Kent State University, Ph.D.
Courses Taught: Mass Media and Society
Journalism 101
Career Specialties: Sonali Kudva's academic interests are interdisciplinary, and her teaching is primarily in courses that look at the relationships between mass media and society; technology use and effects; journalistic ethics; and information literacy and media use. She also greatly enjoys teaching news writing and editing.
Professional and Community Activities: Kudva is a former full-time journalist and editor from India. She has worked at the Times of India, Sakaal Times, trade publications and a web-based magazine specifically targeted at and created by South Asian women. She considers herself an accidental academic and is now an interdisciplinary researcher in journalism, information science, film and popular culture, following the critical-cultural perspective.
In research, one of her early co-authored publications, "Ebooks vs. Print Books: Readers' choices and preferences across contexts," continues to be widely cited, including in other textbooks. Kudva's doctoral dissertation was on contemporary Indian cinema (or Bollywood) and examines it as an information ecology, placing it in historical and cultural contexts.
As someone who has travelled widely and lived on four continents at various times in her life, Kudva feels strongly about intercultural communication issues and has worked on clearing up these issues for international students and faculty.
Kudva is a reviewer and member of several professional and academic associations. She also continues to work on various editorial projects that come her way.
Honors and Awards:
- Member Kappa Tau Alpha, the International Honor Society for Journalism students, Spring 2017
- Scholarship Award Winner 2017-18: The James Sutherland Endowed Scholarship, provided by the Buckeye Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists
- Selected for White House internship program (Obama Presidency) as part of the White House Asia-American Pacific Initiative (AAPI). Later disqualified due to lack of American citizenship (July 2016).
- Recognized as International Journalist of the Month by the International Journalists’ Network in July 2016
- Recipient of Scholarship from the South-Asian Journalism Association, 2015
- Authored and received the first student fellowship/grant for travel and completion of a multimedia project, “Water for All,” from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting in rural India (2009). All photography, writing, video and audio work was completed without assistance.
- Participant in at least two NSF grant-funded projects, resulting in publications and conferences.