Toni Maisano (Ph.D, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is a qualitative researcher who studies communication about social identity and difference in close personal relationships like the family. She is interested in understanding how religious and political identity and difference impact communication dynamics in these relationships, including how people maintain relationships across significant differences as well as how evolution and change in one’s own religious and political beliefs impacts their sense of identity and how they communicate those changes to others. She will teach courses in family and interpersonal communication, communication theory, social identity and intergroup communication, and communication about mental health, among other subjects.