Leandra Hernandez, a professor in the College of Health and Human Services at Trident University in Cypress, California, received two awards at the annual conference of the National Communication Association that was held recently in Salt Lake City.
Dr. Hernandez was honored with the 2018 Bonnie Ritter Book award for her work Challenging Reproductive Control and Gendered Violence in the Americas: Intersectionality, Power, and Struggles for Rights (Lexington Books, 2018). The book, analyzes reproductive and gendered violence directed at women in Texas and Latin America. She shares this award with co-author Sarah de Los Santos Upton, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Dr. Hernandez was also honored with the Bill Endie Distinguished Article Award for “Telling Global Public Health Stories: Narrative Message Design for Issues Management.” The article was published in the journal Communication Research.
A graduate of the University of St. Thomas, where she majored in mass communication, Dr. Hernandez holds a master’s degree in mass communication from the University of Houston and a Ph.D. in health communication from Texas A&M University.