Nice to meet you!

Mel Monier (she/they) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Michigan. Mel is a Rackham Merit Fellow and is also completing a graduate certificate in Digital Studies. Mel primarliy engages in humanities-based research grounded in queer and trans of color feminist praxes and focuses on digital media and the intersections of identities (particularly race, gender, sexuality) and embodiment. They are a member of Oliver Haimson's Community Research on Identity and Technology (CRIT) Lab. Their work has been published in Communication, Culture, and Critique, The Projector, Flow, and Post45. 

In addition to research, Mel is extremely passionate about teaching. They are currently a Graduate Student Facilitator at the Center for Socially Engaged Design (C-SED). In addition to being an Instructor of Record for COMM 306 (“Talking Trash”: Studying Popular Media and Its Audiences), they have been a Lead Graduate Student Instructor for COMM 101 (The Media Past and Present) and Graduate Student Instructor for COMM 355 (Critical Internet, a LSA Upper-Level Writing Requirement). 

Mel’s MA thesis focused on Black beauty vloggers on YouTube, analyzing the intersections of race and digital feminized and aspirational labor. Their dissertation project uses qualitative interviews with trans masculine folks on their attitudes and experiences with pregnancy to illuminate how trans masculine folks use online spaces for identity formation, information sharing, and community building during pregnancy and early parenthood.