ICA is pleased to announce the recent hiring of John Paul Gutierrez as its new Communication Director. John Paul will be responsible for the development and delivery of all inside and outside communication for the Association. One of his key roles will be to expand and incorporate social media into ICA's mission and widely disseminate our member's research. With the rapid changes in academic publishing and communication, the creation of this position comes at an ideal time for ICA and its members.

John Paul (or JP) may be a familiar face. He comes to ICA after 5 years at SAGE Publications. While at SAGE he worked closely in developing PR plans for multiple journals including: Electronic News, International Journal of Press/Politics, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. His responsibilities included identifying media worthy research, timing releases to coincide with newsworthy events, and opening research articles to the general public. His efforts resulted in articles being picked up in the New York Times, Huffington Post, and other outlets. JP developed the internal Twitter strategy for editors at SAGE to disseminate articles and product information, and personally brand themselves as discipline experts. He also chaired the Kindle Initiative Working Group and served on the Social Media Steering Committee, the Social Media Working Group, the Global Internet Usage Steering Committee, the Google Analytics Working Group, the Community Sites Working Group, and the Mobile Sites Working Group at SAGE.

JP also created a strong Communication & Media Studies list for SAGE and increased their brand value by having 8 out of 9 proprietary journals ranked or awaiting their first Impact Factor; by developing and administering the SAGE Podcast program with over 100 podcasts and over 5,000 downloads from iTunes; and by developing and administering the Editor's Choice and Coursepack function of SAGE Journals Online. He was the Social Science group's Internet Usage expert and strategically planned and implemented the usage goals and statistics each year. JP worked on a journals-wide launch of mobile websites at SAGE. He was a key developer of Comm Space - a community website for communication and media studies researchers, students, and practitioners. He contributed content to the site and maintained the editorial calendar to distribute research articles salient to newsworthy events. Comm Space now has over 2,700 members across the globe.

JP has a BA in Communication from California State U, Fullerton and an MA in Communication from the U of Westminster in London. If you have any questions, feel free to email him at jpgutierrez@icahdq.org, reach him on Twitter @JohnPGutierrez, or at the ICA offices at 01- 202-955-1444.