Bio
Saumya Pant, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor (tenured) in the Scripps College of Communication and Director of Communication and Development Studies (CommDev) in School of International Studies and Languages (SISAL) at Ohio University. Gender and Health researcher and activist with more than fifteen years’ experience working with grassroots communities on areas of equity and empowerment, Dr. Pant’s scholarly interests are in gender equity, gender empowerment, social and behavior change, communication for social change, entertainment education media strategy for social change, positive deviance, participatory community-based research, field-based research design and implementation and participatory theater for development.
Dr. Pant’s is an avid traveler who believes that the best way to learn is by immersion. She has traveled to more than 50 countries and lived/worked in every continent. Her recent research is looking at how indigenous people reclaim their identities by using their folk culture – drawing, singing, theater, drumming, dancing. She has been working with the indigenous people - Waorani from the Ecuadorian Amazon, Sámi people of Sapmi in Norway and Bhotiyas in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand in India.
Dr. Pant has begun research activity in the African continent. After her recent visit to Ghana, as part of the Fulbright-Hayes group, she has begun to study the traditional practices of the local communities of West Africa such as the Akan tribe who are an ethnolinguistic group of peoples primarily living in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Togo. As a practitioner and founder of Southeast Ohio Positive Deviance (PD) Learning community, Dr. Pant has begun to work in Tanzania to discover the scope of PD approach to scale new local practices that will promote social and behavior change among communities in east Africa.
Dr. Pant has worked on several projects funded by several international agencies, including Population Communications International and UNAIDS, UNICEF, Johns Hopkins University and UNESCO. Strong writer and scholar with established publication record, Dr. Pant’s scholarly work has been published in international journals like Journal of Communication, Journal of Development Communication, and International Journal of Mobile Marketing. She authored the ‘international development theories’ submission in Encyclopedia of Communication Theory.
At Media Arts and Studies, Saumya teaches courses such as:
Seminar in Communication and Development (MDIA 6080),
Introduction to Research in Communication and Development (MDIA 6082)
Applied Methods in Communication and Development (MDIA 6090)
Qualitative Research Methods in Media (MDIA 6030)
Communication Culture and Technology (MDIA 4176/5176)
Introduction to Social Media (MDIA 2113)
Dr. Pant is also an active Member of Board of Directors at Rural Action, Ohio which is is a membership-based nonprofit working in the southeast and central eastern counties of Appalachian Ohio since 1991.
Education
Ph.D. Communication, Ohio University
Women's Studies Graduate Certificate, Ohio University
M.A. Communication, Ohio University
M.A. Mass Communication, Pune University, India
B.A. History, Delhi University, India