his year at the 106th Annual National Communications Association Convention, commonly referred to as NCA, Optic Lab and its members were very involved and were honored for their insightful and interesting work. NCA is a conference must for communication scholars and it happens once a year. At NCA, graduate students, scholars, professors, and industry professionals meet to learn and share their research in a broad array of communication subdisciplines. It is an honor to have your paper selected, to be on a panel, and/or to receive an award at NCA. Due to the pandemic, the convention was held online. Despite this, the lab was still actively participating and receiving awards.

Dr. Keri Stephens, Courtney Powers, and Anastazja Harris received the Top Paper award in the Training & Development division. The paper shares their experiences around one of their research projects when a communication challenge surfaced during the needs assessment. Essentially, everyone was using the same phrase to describe the focus of the project, but they  all understood the phrase differently, a concept known as inadvertent equivocation. Despite following a rigorous research process to develop a needs-centered training, they initially misdiagnosed their client’s needs. By pulling the curtain back on their needs assessment process, they revealed the conundrum, and how they resolved it. Therefore, this case study should be helpful for both practitioners and training and development scholars. 

Many of OPTIC Lab/s members were individually involved at NCA. Courtney Powers also received a top award around her great ideas for teaching, and she participated in a panel about how to communicate to professionals who come from different professional fields. Kendall Tich presented some of her work on a panel as well. She discussed risk communication from a practitioner’s perspective. Former OPTIC Lab member, Dr. Brett Robertson, presented his work on older adults and disaster preparedness. Cassidy Doucet presented two of her papers. One paper she presented was about supporting working mothers. The other paper was a collaboration with Carly Montagnolo called, “Disclosing Mental Illness: Effect of In-Group/Out-Group Identity on the Health Disclosure Decision-Making Model”. Lastly, Sam James, Brett Roberston, and Anastazja Harris worked together and presented “Measuring collaborative competencies in small groups”. 

Dr. Stephens participated in a meaningful tribute to honor a valued member of the Training & Development Division.  She has chaired the award committee for this division for the past two years. Unfortunately, this past year the division lost a foundational member, Ross Brinkert. In his honor they renamed the Rising Star award to Ross Brinkert Rising Star Award. 

While this year’s NCA was different from the past, the focus remained on advancing communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry. We are so proud of all the hard work and success that OPTIC Lab had this year at NCA.