Dr. Brad Mello is Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Saint Xavier University (SXU) on the south side of Chicago.  He received his BA in Telecommunications in 1985 and MA in Speech Communication in 1987 from Penn State University.  He completed his Doctorate in Communication at the University of Oklahoma in 1993.   His area of emphasis during his doctoral studies was political communication and media studies.  That emphasis has guided various teaching and research interests including most often the study of political cartoons and the teaching of various media history, theory and criticism courses.

Upon completing his doctoral work in 1993 Dr. Mello spent 13 years on the faculty at Trinity Washington University in Washington, DC.  He chaired both the Communication Department and the Social Sciences Division. While at Trinity he served at the faculty co-chair of the Middle States Self-Study reaccreditation team where he learned the challenges and benefits of a peer review accreditation process.  Dr. Mello also created Trinity’s MA in Communication (now an MA in Strategic Communication) aimed at working adult learners in the DC area who are seeking career advancement. 

In 2008 Dr. Mello joined the staff of the National Communication Association (NCA) as the Associate Director for Educational Initiatives, and subsequently as an Associate Director for Academic and Professional Affairs.  During his time at NCA he led a successful effort to obtain a grant of $588,000 from Lumina Foundation to support NCA’s Learning Outcomes in Communication project, which identified what students in communication should know and be able to do upon graduation.

In the fall of 2014, Dr. Mello returned to the classroom to once again work with a dynamic and very diverse group of students at Saint Xavier University (SXU).  While at SXU he has led efforts to revamp the communication major as well as create new programs in Film and Media Studies and an online degree completion program in Applied Communication for working adults.  He continues to write in the area of political communication, with an emphasis on editorial cartooning as well as writing with colleagues on issues of teaching and learning in communication. Dr. Mello is pleased to join the board of Maddog Strong to help the non-profit further its mission of saving lives through organ and tissue donation education.