James C. Tsao, Doctorate in Mass Communications, Temple University, 1989. Tsao joined the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1992 with a teaching specialty in advertising. He was promoted to full professor in 2002 and served as department chair from 2002 to 2007 before accepting the chair position of the Department of Advertising at Syracuse University. Tsao was a Journalism Diversity Fellow of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in 2005-2006 as well as an UW-Oshkosh Teaching Scholar in 2004-2005. As a United Daily News Forum Visiting Scholar, he spent the 1997 spring semester at National-Chengchi University in Taipei teaching and studying international advertising. Tsao also won a Stanford University summer visiting research travel grant in 1994.

Tsao has presented numerous refereed papers devoted to advertising, community free papers, health communication, and international journalism at national and international conferences. He has received many UW-System and external research grants and has published studies in leading journals including the Journal of Advertising Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and international journals including Asian Journal of Communication (Singapore), International Communication Gazette (The Netherlands), Journal of Adverting Research (Taiwan), and KEIO Communication Review (Japan). He has been supervising UW-Oshkosh National Student Advertising Competition teams since 1994. His students have won the district competition and have advanced to nationals twice. Graduates completing his advertising class have been employed by top advertising agencies and prominent companies including BBDO, Carmichael Lynch, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Euro RSCG Worldwide, GSD&M, Harley-Davidson Inc., Kimberly Clark Inc., Leo Burnett, Martin Williams, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather, TBWA\Chiat\Day, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, and Yahoo.com.

Prior to his teaching career at UW-Oshkosh, Tsao taught at Western Illinois University. He was selected as a visiting professor at Lintas: Campbell-Ewald advertising agency, Detroit, by the Advertising Educational Foundation in 1991. He received the Top Paper Award out of 91 entries in the division of health communication at the annual convention of International Communication Association in 1991. More recently, his co-authored study on teenagers trust of advertising was awarded as a Top-Three paper presented in the AEJMC 2007 mid-winter conference at Reno, Nevada.

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