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After over a year of ethnographic research supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine, Candis is now in the midst of writing her dissertation. Tentatively titled “Spinning Climate Change: How groups are using media, science, and public relations to engage the American public,” Candis' dissertation looks at the communication of climate change to Americans through the lens of three distinct social groups that are outside mainstream environmentalism and policy/government frameworks.  What her research seeks to understand is how the issue of climate change has moved beyond traditional ideals of scientific authority to the realm of meaning-making, ethics, and morality. Her analysis seeks to expand notions of public debate and knowledge production about complex scientific issues, particularly in an era of intense media fragmentation.  Prior to HASTS, Candis completed a master’s degree in Comparative Media Studies at MIT focusing on issues related to visual culture, media convergence, and digital representations of the environment. Her thesis, A Digital Assemblage: Diagramming the Social Realities of the Stikine Watershed looked at the Stikine River area in Alaska and Northwestern British Columbia as a condition for relating factors of knowledge, discourse, and power.  Candis' professional background previous to graduate school includes seven years of producing, writing, and reporting for television, the Internet, and radio in Canada (CBC, CTV, APTN) and the United States (Lycos, Tech TV).