Raisa Alvarado, assistant professor of communication and media at Cal State San Bernardino, has received two prestigious 2025 honors from the National Communication Association (NCA), recognizing her outstanding contributions to education and social justice advocacy. The NCA is the largest academic organization dedicated to the discipline of communication studies.

Both awards will be presented at NCA’s annual conference, taking place Nov. 20-23 in Aurora, Colo.

Alvarado is the recipient of both the Pedagogy Award from the Activism and Social Justice Division and the Scholar Activist Award from the Feminist and Gender Studies Division. This dual recognition highlights her impact on transformational education and community engagement.

The Pedagogy Award recognizes educators who demonstrate significant contributions and excellence in teaching in activism and social justice. The Scholar Activist Award honors scholars “who have acted in communities or on their campuses to challenge, resist, or make progress in solving social injustice(s) (in areas relevant to) scholars of feminism, gender, sexuality and/or women studies.”

“Dr. Alvarado’s teaching, research, and activism are one and the same. The classes she develops emerge directly from the projects she is undertaking, giving her students the unique opportunity to co-create knowledge,” said José Ángel Maldonado, PhD, assistant professor of communication at the University of Florida, and Raquel Moreira, PhD, assistant professor of communication at the University of Maryland, who nominated Alvarado for the Pedagogy Award. “The idea that one can enact social change through intentional participation in one's sphere of influence is central to Dr. Alvarado's approach.”

For the Scholar Activist Award, nominators Leandra H. Hernández, associate professor of communication at the University of Utah, and Sarah De Los Santos Upton, associate professor of communication at the University of Texas at El Paso, emphasized Alvarado’s broad commitment to advocacy and institutional change.

“In addition to her service on campus that uplifts marginalized voices and advocates for justice, Raisa is the vice chair and soon to be chair of the Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication, an organization affiliated with the Western States Communication Association. She is currently in year two of her six-year commitment to the affiliate group, which promotes dialogue, discussion, research, and scholarship concerned with women, feminism, gender, oppression, and social change,” the nominators noted.