Shiela Reaves
Professor and Chair, Undergraduate Studies
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Office: 228 Hiram Smith Hall |
Background | Teaching |Publications | Education
Background
I am interested in the interdisciplinary crossroads of neuroscience and visual communication that gives us insights into what attracts the visual brain across media and communication. I incorporate this into my visual theory course, LSC 350: “Visualizing Science & Technology.” I include more of this crossroad in the emerging field called neuro-aesthetics in LSC 450: “Documentary Photography for the Sciences.” I serve on the steering committee of the McPherson Eye Research Institute that encourages this cross-disciplinary dialogue.
Currently I am on the editorial board of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics. My research interests include the ethics of digital manipulation that formed a program studying aspects of digital technology and the credibility of news and other media photographs that was published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and the Newspaper Research Journal. I continue my interests in how the consumption of media photography consistently influences patients suffering from eating disorders, and I suggest in the Journal of Mass Media Ethics that our highly social brains tend to believe media depictions of the ultra-thin “mono-body” found in society – and that social comparison between self and others is an ancient process that is maladaptive with modern Western media and the Internet. My suggestions include adding more body shapes to form a range of “poly-body” images.
As an Affiliate Faculty member to the UW-Madison American Indian Studies Program, I continue to work with UW colleagues committed to the sovereignty and communication issues of Wisconsin’s 11 Nations. I serve on the educational board of News From Indian Country, which broadcasts at www.indiancountrynews.com.
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Positions Held
| Professor, Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison , 2005 – present.
| Associate Professor, Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison , 2001- 2005.Affiliate Faculty, American Indian Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison , 1999 – present.
| Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1996- 2001. Division of Continuing Studies, Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts, 59% / School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 41%
| Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin- Madison 1989-1995, Division of Continuing Studies, Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts, 59% / School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 41%
| Adjunct Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1986-1998.
| Staff Photographer, The Capital Times, Madison , Wisconsin (first woman photojournalist on a Wisconsin daily newspaper; specialized in news and sports photography), October 1997- August 1985.
| Staff Photographer, Pioneer Press, Time Inc. Wilmette, Illinois (staff photographer to Time Inc.’s weekly chain of newspapers in western suburbs of Chicago ), February to October 1977.
