S. Courtney Walton is the recipient of a 2008-2009 SAGE Sara Miller McCune Fellowship, awarded to first year doctoral students in the Division of Social Sciences for demonstrated commitment to teaching and the application of research to solving social problems. More recently, Courtney was awarded a 2009 National Science Foundation/ University of California Diversity Initiative for Graduate Study in the Social Sciences Research Grant to begin work on her thesis under the mentorship of her advisor Dr. Ronald E. Rice.
As a second year MA/PhD student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Courtney is pursuing a degree in Communication, with a PhD emphasis in Technology and Society through the UCSB Center for Technology and Society. She has a B.S. in Communication Studies from Northwestern University and earned a Masters in Communication Management from the Charles Annenberg Weingarten Program on Online Communities at the University of Southern California.
Courtney has an extensive nonprofit background and more than five years experience developing and managing online communities. Pursuing research related to the attitudes and behaviors of Internet and mobile phone users, Courtney is interested in the interplay between mobile phone technology, social media, gender, self-disclosure and perceptions of influence.