MA English '97 and PhD Cultural Studies '04
Dr. Burns-Ardolino graduated with a PhD in Cultural Studies from Mason in 2004. She was hired as Assistant Professor of Communicative Arts & Integrative Studies in 2005 at Clayton State University near Atlanta, Georgia where she was tenured and served as director for all interdisciplinary programs including the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program. She was instrumental in the development of the graduate school at CSU. She brought her expertise in undergraduate interdisciplinary program development and graduate education with her to Grand Rapids, Michigan when she was hired in 2011 to chair the Liberal Studies Department in the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Grand Valley State University.
Since arriving at GVSU, Dr. Burns-Ardolino has been a leader in shared governance, equity and inclusion, graduate education, and interdisciplinary curriculum development. She earned promotion to professor in 2016 and was awarded the Glenn Niemeyer award for excellence in teaching, research and service in 2017. Her current ethnographic work brings together research in the fields of body studies, women and sports, and feminist theory with the lived experiences of women triathletes. She has authored two monographs: TV Female Foursomes and their Fans and Jiggle: (Re)Shaping American Women, in addition to a variety of articles and book chapters.
Dr. Burns-Ardolino teaches courses that cut across media, cultural and women’s studies and is nationally recognized as a scholar in the fields of feminist media studies, body studies, and American popular culture.