Cheryl L. Nicholas

Dr. Cheryl L. Nicholas is an associate professor of Communication Arts & Sciences and Global Studies at Penn State Berks. She is an ethnographer who enjoys doing research in her homeland, Malaysia. Her research is based on how symbolic activity constitutes and is constituted by cultural worldviews. Theoretically, her work is grounded in language and social interaction and critical perspectives. She studies everyday storytelling in mediated and cultural spaces. Her research has been published in journals such as Sexuality and Culture, Communication Quarterly, Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, Storytelling, Self & Society, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication and as book chapters in books such as, Queer Identities/Political Realities, Games, Leadership and Learning in Virtual Environments, and Critical Articulations of Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation.

Cheryl is the recipient of the 2011 Penn State Berks Outstanding Full-Time Teacher Award and the 2014-15 Penn State University Commission on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Equity (CLGBTQE) Award for Outstanding Service. In 2017 she was honored in the 'Teachers on Teaching' series by the National Communication Association, at their annual conference, and in 2019 she was named an Alumni Teaching Fellow at Penn State.

Cheryl teaches classes in intercultural communication, message evaluation, the art of cinema, storytelling, and communication theory. She has also developed research-based classes on focused topics such as LGBTQ+ identity/arts, media and storytelling, comic-book communities, and food culture.