Daya Thussu, President
Daya Kishan Thussu is Professor of International Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Commonwealth Studies, University of London. He is the 13th President of IAMCR and the first based outside the West in the history of the 67-year-old global organisation. His four-year tenure commenced in July 2024. His membership of IAMCR goes back thirty years, including twelve on the International Council (2000-2012).
A leading scholar of global communication, he has a PhD in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and was, for many years, Professor of International Communication at the University of Westminster in London where he was also co-director of the India Media Centre and Research Advisor of the China Media Centre. For the academic year 2018-2019, he was Distinguished Visiting Professor and Inaugural Disney Chair in Global Media at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University in Beijing. He is the author or editor of 20 books, including International Communication - Continuity and Change, third edition (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) and, most recently, Changing Geopolitics of Global Communication (Routledge, 2024).
He is the founder editor of the Sage journal Global Media and Communication, which will mark its 20th anniversary next year and, since 2009, he has been series editor for two Routledge book series: Internationalizing Media Studies and Routledge Advances in Internationalizing Media Studies.
Karen Arriaza Ibarra, Vice-president
Karen Arriaza Ibarra is Professor in Audiovisual Communication at the Faculty of Communication of Universidad Complutense in Madrid, where she is the Director of the research group ‘The Nordic Model and Culture of the Information Society’. A long-standing leader of the International Communication section of IAMCR, she became elected INC Chair in 2016-2020, reelected for 2020-2024, and Vice Chair in 2012-2016. Currently, she is also Vice Chair of the Committee for the Improvement of Academic Life (CIAL) and acted as coordinator of the S-WGs Heads’ meetings from 2016-2019.
Her work focuses on the structure of public and private media, European media (including public service media), political communication, media economy and cultural industries at an international level. She is particularly interested in studying media phenomena such as populism or women’s rights movements that cut across country contexts (especially Northern and Southern Europe).
Dr. Arriaza Ibarra’s publications include the book «The Challenges of the Digital Society in the Nordic Countries and in Spain: Democracy, Society and Culture» (2022), co-edited with Prof. Lars Nord; the book “Public Service Media in Europe: A Comparative Approach” (Routledge, 2015), and many journal articles on television, streaming platforms, PSM and economy of the media. She has been guest professor at universities in Sweden, France, the United States, Belgium, Germany, the U.K., and China. She speaks Spanish, English, French, and Swedish (basic level).
Andrea Medrado, Vice-president
Andrea Medrado is a Senior Lecturer in Global Communications and a Head of Research for Communications at the Department of Communications, Drama and Film of the University of Exeter in the UK. She has recently been re-elected for a second term (2024-2028) as the Co-Vice President of IAMCR. She has also acted as a co-chair for the Community Communication and Alternative Media Section (2020-2024).
Andrea is currently a Co-Investigator for the Project "The Social Foundations of Cryptography", funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Her book "Media Activism, Artivism and the Fight Against Marginalisation in the Global South", co-authored with Isabella Rega, was published by Routledge in May 2023. The book has received the "Outstanding Book Award 2024" from the International Communication Association - ICA - Activism, Communication and Social Justice Division. It has also been shortlisted for MeCCSA's - the British Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association - 2024 "Best Monograph Award".
She has also published widely in academic journals, such as Big Data & Society, Information Communication & Society, and Tapuya. Her research interests include communication for social justice, media activism and artivism in the Global South, critical AI and data studies, ethnographic, participatory and creative methods.
Skye Doherty, Treasurer
Skye Doherty is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland, Australia, where she runs the Global Change Scholars Program for the UQ Graduate School. She leads the Advocacy and the Public Good theme within the Centre for Communication and Social Change and is a member of the Human-Centred Computing research group in the School of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.
Her research uses creative and design-led research methods to explore alternative futures and address wicked problems. Her work has addressed issues in journalism, law, education, and disaster resilience and energy, among others and has led to both conceptual and practical outcomes.
As Treasurer, Skye oversees the management of IAMCR’s finances. This involves regular accounting, administering bank accounts, managing external audits, annual financial reporting, and financial strategy development and implementation. She is the chair of the IAMCR Finance Committee.
Bruce Girard, Executive Director
Bruce Girard has been executive director since 2015, after running the technical secretariat in Uruguay for 10 years. Previously he was an independent consultant specialised in community and alternative radio, participatory communication, ICTs for development. He is co-author or editor of six books, from A Passion for Radio (1992) to Enabling Openness (2013). As Executive Director, Girard serves as an advisor to the executive board.