Recent News:
April, 2012 Lauren will receive the top paper award from the Political Communication Division of the Southern States Communication Association.
February, 2012 Lauren's dissertation, "Winning Isn't Everything: The Effect of Nationalism Bias on Enjoyment of a Mediated Sporting Event" has been accepted for publication and will appear in the International Journal of Sport Communication.
January, 2012 Lauren's co-authored article "International Facebook Faces: An Analysis of Self Inflicted Face-ism in Online Profile Pictures" has been accepted for publication and will appear in the Journal of Intercultural Communication.
August, 2011 Lauren was elected co-chair of the Membership and Recruitment committee of the Sports Communication Interest Group of AEJMC.
April, 2011 Lauren's co-authored article "Let's (Not) Talk About Sex: An Analysis of the Verbal and Visual Coverage of Women's Beach Volleyball During the 2008 Olympic Games" has been accepted for publication and will appear in the Journal of Sports Media in either the Fall of 2011 or Winter of 2012.
April, 2011 Lauren was elected to the position of Secretary/Vice-Chair Elect in the Mass Communication Division of Southern States Communication Association. Her term will span from 2011 - 2015.
April, 2011 Lauren received the top paper award from the Political Communication Division of the Southern States Communication Association.
November, 2010 Lauren was asked to serve as the Chair of the Roundtable and Panel Selection Committee for the Children, Adolescents and Media division of the International Communication Association. She will serve in this position for the 2011-2012 conferences.
August, 2010 Lauren began working for Auburn University, in the Department of Communication and Journalism as an Assistant Professor of Public Relations
April 2010 Lauren received the Top Student Paper Award for the BEA 2010 Research Symposium entitled "Sports Media: Transformation, Integration, Consumption Schedule". She presented her research amongst the most senior and renowned sports media scholars at the 2010 BEA Convention in Las Vegas in April, and her paper will appear in a book entitled Sports Media: Transformation, Integration, Consumption, edited by Andrew Billings, due out in 2011.
April, 2009 Lauren received the Robert Bostrom Young Scholar Award at the 2009 Southern States Communication Association conference. This award honors the most outstanding paper submitted to the convention each year by a graduate student. The recipient of this award is determined by the Vice President through a process established by the Vice President.
March, 2008 Lauren was invited to make a guest appearance on KKIQ and Diablo Valley 92.1 (KKDV) Radio discussing her paper "MySpace Goes to Washington: The Use of Social Networking Sites as a Political Campaign Tool"