Penny is a Senior Lecturer in Political Communication & Journalism in the Department of Communication Science. She received her Ph.D. in Communication in 2011 from the University of Washington and her M.A. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota, in 2006.
Her research and teaching focus on political communication, news, and public opinion, with a particular interest in the role national identity plays in the construction and flow of news, as well as its effects on citizens’ attitudes and behavior. She explores these issues mostly through content analysis and experimental methods but also has a developing interest in both interviewing and python-based computational methods. She has published on these issues in international journals including Political Communication, Political Psychology, Mass Communication and Society, Press/Politics, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, and the Journal of Communication.