RESEARCH INTERESTS
Media history, critical political economy, cultural studies, slavery studies, early American studies, colonialism, archival studies, historiography
PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES
DasSarma, A., & Fisher, L. D. (2023). The Persistence of Indigenous Unfreedom in Early American Newspaper Advertisements, 1704–1804. Slavery & Abolition, 44:2, 267-291. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2023.2189517
ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP
DasSarma, A. (2024). Racial Capitalism, Journalism History, Liberated Futures: A Conversation with Joseph Torres – Center for Media at Risk and Media, Inequality & Change Center [Broadcast]. Retrieved from https://www.ascmediarisk.org/media/racial-capitalism-journalism-history-liberated-futures-a-conversation-with-joseph-torres/
DasSarma, A., & Gill, S. (2024). Neoliberalism and the University, Part 1– Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication. [Broadcast]. Retrieved from https://newbooksnetwork.com/neoliberalism-and-the-university-part-1
DasSarma, A., & Gill, S. (2024). Neoliberalism and the University, Part 2 – Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication. [Broadcast]. Retrieved from https://newbooksnetwork.com/neoliberalism-and-the-university-part-2
DasSarma, A. (2023). The Eastern Echo & The Umpire: Contextualizing The Penal Press of Eastern State Penitentiary – Center for Media at Risk. https://www.ascmediarisk.org/media/the-eastern-echo-and-the-umpire-contextualizing-the-penal-press-of-eastern-state-penitentiary/
DasSarma, A., Dillard, C., Gill, S., Isch, C., Mbock, N., Muzekari, B., Probol, D., Proust, V., Teliz Martinez, S.A., Smith, T. L., Ye, Q., . Building a National Memorial to Journalists Who Died in Pursuit of the Truth. A Report Commissioned by the Fallen Journalists Foundation, May 9, 2023.
RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS
Research Fellow with Prof. Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, January 2025 – May 2025
Research Fellow with Prof. Victor Pickard, University of Pennsylvania, August 2024 – December 2024
Research Fellow, Media 2070, January 2023 – August 2024
COMPASS Fellow, Free Press, June 2024 – August 2024
Research Fellow with Prof. Sarah Jackson, University of Pennsylvania and Free Press, August 2023 – December 2023
Research Fellow with Prof. Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, January 2023 – May 2023
Research Fellow with Prof. Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania, August 2022 – December 2023
Research Assistant with Prof. Linford Fisher, Brown University, August 2021 – May 2022
TEACHING AND MENTORSHIP EXPERIENCE
Instructor, Chestnut Hill College, January 2025 – May 2025
- MCOM 230: Media Literacy
- Topics: media literacy, cultural studies, political economy
Teaching Fellow with Prof. Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, January 2024 – May 2024
- COMM 3390: Critical Perspectives in Journalism.
- Topics: critical journalism history and digital news ephemerality
Course Assistant with Prof. Linford Fisher, Brown University, January 2022 – May 2022
- HIST 1970G: Captive Voices: Atlantic Slavery in the Digital Age.
- Topics: slavery, kinship, and archives
CENTER AFFILIATIONS
Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Media at Risk, University of Pennsylvania, September 2022 – Present
- Assisted in planning the 2023 & 2024 Annual Symposiums
Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, University of Pennsylvania, October 2022 – Present
Doctoral Fellow at the Media Inequality and Change Center, University of Pennsylvania, November 2022 – Present
CONFERENCES
Panel Organizer and Presenter, Geographies of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas, American Historical Association, New York City, New York, January 2025
Moderator and Organizer, Academe in the Age of Social Media: Scholarly Inquiry at Risk?, Annenberg School for Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 2024
Paper, “We Want Entire Freedom:” The New Orleans Tribune and The Formation of Counterpublics Through Affective Discourse, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, August 2024, with Valentina Proust
Invited Presenter, Narratives of White Normativity and the Political Economy of Slavery: Revisiting Publick Occurrences, The Boston News-Letter, and the Origin Story of America’s Early Press, Rethinking our Communicative Pasts: Reparatory and Radical Perspectives, London, England, April 2024
Organizer, 2024 Workshop Series: Introduction to Archival Methodology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March – April 2024
Organizer, Center for Media at Risk and Annenberg C3 Symposium: When Media Put Social Justice at Risk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 2023
Social Media, Turning Points: The Long 1990s in Internet History, Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 2023
Organizing, Union for Democratic Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 2023
Paper, White Normativity, Slavery, and “the Charming of that Spirit of Lying”: Revisiting Publick Occurrences and the Origin Story of America’s Early Press, International Association for Media and Communication Research, Lyon, France, July 2023
Paper, “We are deeply and profoundly sorry:” A case study in querying efficacy of institutional apologies for perpetuated racism, International Communication Association, Toronto, Canada, May 2023
Attendee with post-reflection, Imagining the Online as the Offline: Metrics, Journalism, History, and Teetering at the Abyss, Milton Wolf Seminar, Vienna, Austria, April 2023
Paper, Structures of Power and Sites of Resistance: Repositioning and Retelling the History of the Earliest Newspapers in “America,” Lisbon Winter School, January 2023
Poster, The Persistence of Indigenous Unfreedom in Early American Newspaper Ads, 1704–1804 at the American Historical Association 2023 Conference, January 2023, with Professor Linford Fisher
Paper, Relinquishing the “Newness” from the News: Historicizing Hegemonic Journalism’s Relationships with Truth, Whiteness, Slavery, and Ethics at the 2022 American Studies Graduate Conference at Brown University, May 2022
MEMBERSHIPS / AFFILIATIONS
International Association for Media and Communication Research (2023-present)
International Communication Association (2023-present)
American Historical Association (2022-present)
Asian American Journalists Association (2020-2021)
HONORS / AWARDS / GRANTS
Recipient of 2025 AHA Annual Meeting Travel Grant (January 2025)
Awarded Top Extended Abstract for “We Want Entire Freedom:” The New Orleans Tribune and The Formation of Counterpublics Through Affective Discourse, with Valentina Proust
Appointed as Social Chair, Graduate Council, Annenberg School for Communication (2023-2025)
Selected as an Emerging Scholar Fellow to the Milton Wolf Seminar in Vienna Austria (April 2023)
Elected to the Events Committee, Annenberg School for Communication (2022-2023)
Elected Humanities Senator (2017-2021)
Represented the University of Maryland, Baltimore County at the College Media Association conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota (June 2020)
Invited to speak at the Howard County Community College newspaper (HCC Times) retreat (August 2020)
Invited to speak at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Media and Communications Council of Majors panel on internship success (October 2020)
Established The Retriever Weekly Advisory Board with outstanding journalists from the Washington DC-Baltimore community
Article selected for syndication by the Associated Press Wire published in 54 newspapers across the United States and abroad
Student representative within administrative COVID-19 pandemic planning meetings at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education for work as a student journalist during the pandemic
SERVICE
Peer Reviewer, Journalism
Peer Reviewer, UMBC Review
TRAINING
Completed Social/Behavioral Research Course through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (2022)
Completed Brown University’s Teaching Essentials for Graduate TAs (2021)
PROFESSIONAL/NON-ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
Editor-in-Chief, The Retriever Weekly, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, May 2020 – May 2021
Noted Adviser, The Wall Street Journal, June 2020 – May 2021
Maryland-Delaware-DC Reese Cleghorn Editorial Intern, The Baltimore Sun, June 2020 – August 2020
Public Relations Intern, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, January 2020 – May 2020
Opinions Editor, The Retriever Weekly, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, February 2019 – May 2020
Ambassador, Study Abroad Office, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, September 2019- December 2019
Communications Intern, Newseum, September 2018 – January 2019
Reporter, UMBC Alumni Magazine, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, May 2018 – December 2018 Digital Marketing Intern,
Division of Professional Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, January 2018 – August 2018