Dr. Yael Warshel is a Penn State university-wide Rock Ethics Institute core faculty and Assistant Professor of Telecommunications at Pennsylvania State University. She works at the intersection between international media, child, and conflict analysis, practice and policy.
She is fluent in and/or has studied five languages and conducted fieldwork in the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans and Latin America. An award-winning scholar, Dr. Warshel is the recipient of three top dissertation awards, including one in peace studies, and two in global and international communication, which she received from the International and National Communication Associations; together with several more awards in communication, public service, Middle Eastern and African studies. She is advancing a book manuscript assessing the reception of peacebuilding versions of Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street; continuing fieldwork to analyze North West African youth’s uses of digital media to construct their citizenship; and separate of that, about the comparative determinants of international coverage of conflicts, per the contrast between frames and agendas set, and the magnitude and intensity of conflicts. Her past publications addressed the contributions of communication and media studies to peace education, Middle Eastern children and youth’s media uses and reception, and election studies. She wrote Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Children, Peace Communication and Socialization (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and co‐edited (with Elihu Katz), Election Studies: What’s Their Use? She serves as Chair of E-Book Reviews for the Digest of Middle East Studies, is a Board Member of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), and has been quoted by a broad range of international media sources.
Before joining Penn State, Dr. Warshel taught at UCLA, UCSD and American University as an Assistant Professor of International Communication and Associate Faculty of International Peace and Conflict Resolution. She coordinated communication policy for UNESCO, worked as photojournalist with the Zimbabwe‐Inter‐Africa‐News‐Agency, and conducted policy‐relevant research with the Center for International Development and Conflict Management, the Jerusalem‐based Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Center for Middle East Development, and the Center for Research on Peace Education.
Areas of Expertise
Peace communication and social change; comparative and global African, Middle Eastern and Saharan media (including systems, ethics, practices, uses, reception, effects and contexts); children and ethnopolitical conflict; ethnography of violence; public opinion; citizenship/human rights; borderlands and (forced-) migration; social-psychology; assessment and evaluation.
Regional Expertise
Middle East and Africa (both North and Sub-Saharan)
Education
PhD in communication, UC San Diego; MA in communication, Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania; BA studies in still photography, USC School of Cinema‐Television; BA in interdisciplinary studies, UC Berkeley.
Contact:
Assistant Professor, Telecommunications Research Associate, Rock Ethics Institute
Pennsylvania State University
http://yaelwarshel1.blogspot.com
http://comm.psu.edu/people/individual/yael-warshel
https://personal-psu.academia.edu/YaelWarshel
Twitter: @ywarshel
ywarshel [at] gmail.com
Work for CID:
Yael Warshel wrote KC91: Peace Communication.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 
http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/scholar-examines-sesame-street-232028.aspx