Alumni Spotlight: Annie Weldon & Madi Weise
We are so proud to acknowledge two of our previous students, Annie Weldon and Madi Weise, who were both offered spots in graduate programs!
Annie Weldon will continue her education in the PhD program at Oxford, where she will be studying discourses around Nature-based solutions to climate change. While in the Communication Studies program at Cal Poly (2013-17), she minored in Science and Risk Communication. After being introduced to rhetoric, she found an interest in environmental and technological discourses, which served to inform her graduate career path. As a graduate student, she has already worked to pursue an MPhil (Master of Philosophy) at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford as a Rotary Global Grant Scholar.
In the program, she studied the interconnections between societal, political, economic, and environmental issues and their co-creations of each other. She is currently writing her dissertation on 'Animal Infrastructures', theorizing how animals, technologies, and humans can collaborate on restoration projects. One of her primary methods is discourse analysis, putting to use her Cal Poly degree. After completing the Master's program, she now has been accepted to begin her PhD in the same department this October. Over the next few years, she plans to study Nature-based Solutions to climate change to help contribute to effective policy decisions in these areas.
Madi Wiese recently accepted a position in the Media and Interpersonal Communication MA program at UNLV. She graduated from Cal Poly with a Communication Studies degree and Women’s and Gender Studies minor in 2019. She is currently living in Seattle, Washington and plans to move to Las Vegas in the Fall for Graduate School.
After taking Communication Studies courses at Cal Poly, she started to realize the power that communication has to help solve issues that she is passionate about, such as healthy messages related to sex and relationships. In the fall, she will be attending the University of Nevada Las Vegas for her Master's degree to study Media and Interpersonal Communication. Her research interests include the rhetoric of sex education/consent, interpersonal conversations surrounding sex, and portrayals of sex in healthy relationships in the media. Madi's genuine gratitude for the mentorship she received in the Communication Studies department has helped shape her enthusiasm and excitement to join the world of academia and contribute to positive narratives within "taboo" subjects.