New Faces of the A.Q. Miller School

Oct. 15, 2026

This fall, the A.Q. Miller School of Media and Communication welcomed four new faculty and one advisor. These new team members bring a breadth of research, professional, advising and teaching experience to the school. Read more below to learn about them.

Kelsey AbeleKelsey Abele

Instructor and Director of Speech Team

Kelsey Abele (Ph.D., Arizona State University; M.A., Kansas State University) teaches public speaking and a variety of rhetoric classes and directs the nationally acclaimed Speech Team at Kansas State University. Prior to returning to K-State, she coached at Arizona State University and West Texas A&M University, with national finalists in Communication Analysis, Persuasion, Dramatic Interpretation, Prose Interpretation, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Impromptu Speaking. She has served on the American Forensics Association National Speech Tournament Committee as the District 3 Chair.

Abele’s research interests include the state of Forensics at a collegiate level as well as rhetorics of history, memory, and film. She is particularly interested in how memory of historical films influences the perception of memory and history for an audience. Alternative histories, especially as presented in palatable visual mediums such as television and movies create a new hazy boundary of what it means to recall, and the trustworthiness of personal and collective memory.

 

Allison KuehneAllison Kuehne

Arts & Sciences Academic Advisor

Allison Kuehne (B.A. and B.S., Kansas State University; M.A., Kansas State University) is the new academic advisor for the Communication Studies major. She also serves as an academic advisor for the School of Earth and Environment (geology, geography and geospatial sciences) and English.

She has been an instructor and advisor in the English Department at K-State for 7 years. She has taught a range of undergraduate subjects, including expository writing, fiction to film, intro to literary studies, literature for children and career paths in English and the humanities. In 2025 she was given the Term Instructor of the Year award by the English department.

 

Rachel LevittRachel Levitt

Teaching Professor, Program Coordinator for Social Transformation Studies

Rachel Levitt (Ph.D., University of New Mexico; M.A., California State University, Northridge; B.A., California State University, Northridge) is a teacher, scholar, program builder, and higher education leader who helps students and communities understand how communication, power, identity, and institutions shape social change. Their work bridges communication studies, interdisciplinary social justice scholarship, queer studies, legal studies, public engagement, and community organizing. Levitt's research explores the intersections of communication, identity, power, and social movements. Drawing from queer and feminist theories, queer of color critique, Native studies, disability studies, critical university studies, and legal studies, their scholarship examines how institutions shape experiences of belonging and exclusion, how silence and visibility function as communicative practices, and how communities mobilize for social change. Their work contributes to ongoing conversations about intersectionality, activism, higher education, queer data sovereignty, and the possibilities for transformative social and institutional change.

Levitt is an award-winning educator whose teaching centers critical inquiry, engaged dialogue, and student empowerment. They teach courses that explore communication, identity, social justice, activism, and social transformation, helping students develop the analytical, ethical, and communicative skills necessary to navigate an increasingly interconnected world. Their commitment to teaching and mentorship has been recognized through multiple university and community awards, including the Davids-Dunham Award for Excellence as a Teacher and Scholar, the William L. Stamey Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, the University Honors Program Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award, the LGBT Resource Center Esteemed Faculty Award, and the K-State First-Year Advocate Award, among others.

 

Zach OehmZach Oehm

Instructor

Zach Oehm (M.A., Kansas State University; B.A., Hastings College) teaches Public Speaking at Kansas State. Prior to coming back to Manhattan, he taught and coached at West Texas A&M, Concordia College in Moorhead and at Hastings College. His coaching years for collegiate speech teams allowed him to help reshape programs to become nationally competitive again. Zach is not just experienced in the world of communication. He also is an actor and carpenter by trade. While in Texas, he oversaw the budgeting, building, and maintenance of the theater sets for West Texas A&M. He also spent time on stage at the Amarillo Little Theater and in 'Texas: The Musical' summer show.

Zach's wide variety of experiences, mentorship, and coaching will be available to all the students that come into his classroom. He is happy to return to campus on the other side as an educator and to help students on their journeys.

 

Dani SoibelmanDani Soibelman

Assistant Professor of Organizational Communication

Dani R. Soibelman (Ph.D., University of Colorado Boulder; M.A., University of Texas at Austin; B.S., University of Texas at Austin) is joining the A.Q. Miller School as an assistant professor specializing in Organizational Communication. Soibelman's work revolves around critical organizational communication, trans of color critique, and embodiment. Their dissertation explored how histories of settler colonialism animate contemporary United States governance and legislative practices that specifically impact on gender nonconforming communities and/or higher education personnel. Dani has published in the journals Argumentation and Advocacy, QED: A Journal for GLBTQ Worldmaking, and Management Communication Quarterly, with accepted work to come in Feminist Pedagogy. Dani also has two forthcoming book chapters, one in Teaching Research Methods in Communication (Edgar Elward, Nov. 2026) and another in an edited volume on bodily oppressions and resistance (Bloomsbury, 2027).

Professionally and personally, Dani is invested in cultivating caring relationships across communities, situating the communication discipline as a toolkit for building better futures. In addition to their academic work, Dani is a professional performance artist with union status in AEA and SAG-AFTRA.