Jesse G. Delia and Barbara J. Wilson, professors of communication at the UI, have been elected as fellows in the International Communication Association, considered among the highest honors in the broad field of communication studies.
Scholars are elected as ICA Fellows primarily in recognition of distinguished scholarly contributions to the field, with consideration also for service to the association and other socially or professionally significant service.
Delia, who also is executive director of international research relations at Illinois, was recognized for his “innovative, trend-setting” early research in language and speech production, which launched a new tradition in the study of children’s communication practices. As a “pioneer of the communication field,” Delia and his research also have been influential in stimulating interpretive research throughout the entire field, according to the ICA.
Wilson, who heads the communication department (formerly department of speech communication) at Illinois, was recognized for a “distinguished line of research on children and the media,” represented in numerous articles and three books, including the highly praised 2002 book “Children, Adolescents, and the Media.” Her work “has enlarged our understanding of the developmental differences in how children make sense of and react to television portrayals,” according to the ICA.
Delia and Wilson are two of now three ICA fellows at Illinois, joining department colleague M. Scott Poole.
