Dr. Briana Martino is Associate Professor and Chair of Communications, co-director of Cinema and Media Studies, and affiliated faculty in Race, Gender, and Culture. They completed their BS in clinical psychology with emphases in neuroscience and literature at Tufts University and held a Stanley Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Martino is also an alum of Simmons' Communications Department with a focus on integrated media. They earned their doctoral degree in cultural studies from the Graduate Program in Cultural Analysis and Theory at Stony Brook University with qualifying exams in feminist cultural studies, post-war psychiatric practice, documenting mental illness, and institutional analysis via Félix Guattari’s concept/practice of transversality. Their doctoral dissertation, The Living Inside: Listening to Madness with Félix Guattari, maps the politico-therapeutics of mad organizing.
Martino's research explores threads between graphic medicine, which is the conjuncture of comics with clinical medicine and healthcare, as well as the experience or event of illness, trauma, and disability, and mad/disability justice, which is both a theoretical framework and a practice of action and care that centers multiply marginalized mad and disabled people. Their work on graphic medicine as feminist pedagogy appears in MAI: Journal of Feminism and Visual Culture, and their work on graphic medicine’s shared genealogies with mutual aid is forthcoming in The Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. Their current book length project Keywords/images in Graphic Medicine, co-edited with Lisa Diedrich, offers a portal to the concepts, methods, and politics of the field of graphic medicine, bringing together scholars, health professionals, patients, and artists to produce a transdisciplinary verbal/visual lexicon.
Education
- PhD, Cultural Studies, from Stony Brook University
- MA Certificate, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, from Stony Brook University
- MA, Cultural Studies, from Stony Brook University
- BA, Certificate, Integrated Media, from Simmons University
- BS, Clinical Psychology, from Tufts University, summa cum laude
Courses
- COMM 121 Visual Communications
- COMM 344 Storytelling
- COMM 390 Studio 5
- BOS 101 Social Movements and the University
- ENG 195 Art of Film
- ENG 221 Critical Lens: Intro to Film and Media Theory
- WGST 111 Intro to LGBTQ Studies
- WGST 353 Mad/ness
- CHL 428 The Graphic Novel
Research/Creative Activities
Graphic Medicine; Mad Studies; Visual Cultural Studies; Queer Feminist Science and Disability Studies
Briana Martino in the News
Congratulations to the 2024 SURPASs Scholars
Twelve undergraduate scholars from different disciplines have been selected to join the Summer Undergraduate Research Program at Simmons (SURPASs), a highly competitive, fully funded research and mentorship program. During this six week intensive, students will work with a faculty mentor to execute an independent research project of their own design and development.
Studio 5 Imparts Real-World Industry Experience to Communications Students
Essentially a student-run communications agency, Studio 5 gives Communications students at Simmons a taste of real work experience. We spoke with Communications professors and recent alumnae/i about what makes Studio 5 such a successful exercise in experiential learning.
Twelve Simmons Faculty Members Receive Promotions, Tenure, and Emerita/us Status
Last month, the Simmons Board of Trustees finalized decisions concerning the promotion, tenure, and emerita/us status of select faculty members. We are pleased to congratulate the following faculty members for their outstanding accomplishments: Promotion to the rank of Professor Daren...
Simmons Faculty Recognized for Innovative Teaching During the Pandemic
Simmons University received a $10,000 Presidential Grant through the Davis Education Foundation to fund a Post-Pandemic Innovative Teaching Award.
Shout-outs from Students and Alums
Honing Hands-on Editing and Interdisciplinary Journalism
Alicia Guzman ’25 reflects on the supportive faculty members she found at Simmons, her favorite courses, the research projects she conducted, and how she became inspired to pursue a media studies degree in graduate school.
Ifill Scholar Carla Bamaca ’24 on the Impact of Visual Storytelling
Ifill Scholar Carla Bamaca shares her passion for filmmaking and storytelling to inspire change.
Sherri Burnett '24 Hones her Marketing Skills with a Full-time Job and Side Businesses
Sherri Burnett '24 Hones her Marketing Skills with a Full-time Job and Side Businesses Public Relations and Marketing/Communications major Sherri Burnett is pursuing her degree online from California. Simmons is giving her the tools she needs to further hone her...