Indira S. Somani

Indira S. Somani, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications with Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. She began her tenure-track position in the fall of 2008 bringing 10 years of broadcast journalism experience as a television producer to the classroom. Somani teaches online and broadcast producing and broadcast reporting and has introduced two new courses called "Media, Race and Gender" and "Cross-Cultural Documentary Filmmaking." Somani studies effects of satellite television on the Indian diaspora, specifically the generation of the Asian Indians who migrated to the U.S. between 1960 and 1972, and their media habits. She has been published in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and the Asian Journal of Communication. For the fall of 2011, Somani has been awarded a Fulbright research award to study the Western influence of Indian programming at the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media in Bangalore, India. Somani is also an award winning independent producer and director of documentaries about how Asian Indians maintain and preserve their cultural identity. Her most recent production is Crossing Lines, a personal essay documentary about her struggle to stay connected to India after the loss of her father. The film has won numerous awards, screened in film festivals nationally and internationally, screened on PBS affiliates, and has also been distributed to more than 65 university libraries in the U.S. through New Day films. Prior to W & L, Somani taught for five years at American University and the University of Maryland. Prior to transitioning to academia, Somani was a television producer most notably with CNBC and WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. She has been a leader of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), where she has also won several "Outstanding" awards on her coverage of South Asians in North America. Somani earned her Master's in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University in 1993, and her Ph.D. from the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park in May, 2008.

Contact: isomani [at] aol [dot] com