Franklin Gilliam received his BA from Drake University and his PhD from the University of Iowa. He is Professor of Political Science and Founding Director of the Center for Communications and Community at UCLA. Over the last five years Dr. Gilliam has consulted on a wide range of projects focusing on race and media for groups such as the Aspen Institute, the National Funding Collaborative for Violence Prevention, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and many others. Dr. Gilliam serves on the Boards of the National Funding Collaborative for Violence Prevention and the FrameWorks Institute, both of Washington, D.C. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Diego Union Tribune, Boston Globe, Des Moines Register, and the Sydney Times. He has appeared on the NBC Nightly News, ABC Nightly News, CNN, C-Span, KNBC, KABC, KRON, and KPIX. Dr. Gilliam is the author of the Farther to Go: Reading and Cases in African-American Politics (Harcourt Brace) and, with Shanto Iyengar, the forthcoming Race, Television News, and American Politics: Script-based Reasoning About Crime and Welfare (Princeton University Press). His paper (with Seth Masket) was voted the "best paper" in black politics at the 2000 meetings of the Western Political Science Foundation. The Ford Foundation and UCLA's African American Studies Center awarded Dr. Gilliam post-doctoral fellowships. He was awarded a Research Fellowship from the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, UCLA and twice nominated for UCLA's Luckman Distinguished Teaching Award.