Samantha Senda-Cook, PhD

Department

• Communication Studies

Position

• Professor

Samantha Senda-Cook (PhD, University of Utah) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and an affiliated faculty member with the Environmental Science and Sustainability programs at Creighton University. She studies rhetorical theory and analyzes environmental communication and materiality in the contexts of social movements, outdoor recreation, and urban spaces/places. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Japan in 2019. She and her co-editors—Bridie McGreavy, Justine Wells, George F. McHendry, Jr.—were recognized with the Tarla Rai Peterson Distinguished Book Award for their volume, Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life: Ecological Approaches in 2018. Her co-authored book Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ, won the Outstanding Book of the Year in 2016 award from the National Communication Association’s Critical and Cultural Studies Division. Additionally, she was invited to be a plenary speaker at the 15th Biennial Public Address Conference in 2016. Her work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Environmental Communication, International Journal of Wilderness, Southern Journal of Communication, and Argumentation and Advocacy. Along with Michael Middleton and Danielle Endres, her co-authored article, “Articulating Rhetorical Field Methods: Challenges and Tensions,” won the B. Aubrey Fisher Award for best article published in the Western Journal of Communication in 2011. Because she is interested in making this scholarship relevant to community members, she has given public presentations at a monthly open meeting of the Gifford Park Neighborhood Association and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and has spoken about her experience in Japan on a local radio show. She teaches courses in rhetoric, environmental communication, intercultural communication, and communication practices. Additionally, she seeks out opportunities to mentor undergraduate student researchers, several of which have presented at conferences and published their work. Valuing community service and engagement, she volunteers with the Community Bike Project Omaha, which is dedicated to creating equitable social conditions for everyone. When she is not researching, teaching, or volunteering, she can usually be found reading a mystery novel, trying out a new recipe, or riding the hills of Omaha on her bike.

Books

Articles

• , 16, no. 6 , 511-524
• , 16, no. 6 , 571-580
• , 16, no. 1 , 95-97
• , 121-140
• , 293-310
• , 7, 355-371
• , 355-371
• , 35, 143-144
• , 98, 129-152
• , 3
• , 1, 143-144
• , 75, 386-406

Editing and Reviews

Presentations

Grant Funding Received

• Fulbright Fellowship, The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, spring 2019, ~$30,000.

• Top Four Papers, Environmental Communication Division, 2018
• Tarla Rai Peterson Outstanding Book of the Year, National Communication Association – Environmental Communication Division, 2018
• Fulbright Research Award, The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, 2018
• Invited Plenary Speaker, 15th Biennial Public Address Conference, 2016
• Outstanding Book of the Year, National Communication Association – Critical & Cultural Studies Division, 2016
• Visiting Professor, Department of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2014
• B. Aubrey Fisher Award, Western Journal of Communication , 2011