S. Courtney Walton is the recipient of a 2008-2009 SAGE Sara Miller McCune Fellowship, awarded to first year doctoral students in the Division of Social Sciences for demonstrated commitment to teaching and the application of research to solving social problems. More recently, Courtney was awarded a 2009 Summer Graduate Research Scholarship to begin work on her thesis under the mentorship of her advisor Dr. Ronald E. Rice.
As a second year PhD student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Courtney is pursuing a degree in Organizational Communication & Media, with a PhD emphasis in Technology and Society through the UCSB Center for Technology and Society. She has a B.S. in Communication Studies from Northwestern University and earned a Masters in Communication Management from the Charles Annenberg Weingarten Program on Online Communities at the University of Southern California.
Courtney has an extensive nonprofit background and five years experience developing and managing online communities. Pursuing research related to the attitudes and behaviors of mobile phone users, Courtney is interested in the interplay between mobile phone technology, social networks, gender, self-disclosure and perceptions of influence.
