Dr. Vandana Pednekar-Magal is a Journalism and Media Communication professor at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in the United States. She has served as Director of GVSU’s School of Communications and as Chair of Area and Global Studies department.

Vandana currently serves as a Fulbright Specialist at the Communication department in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Diponegoro University (UNDIP) in Semarang, Indonesia. The six-week project beginning August 22 to October 2, 2022, involves capacity building among department faculty to undertake research projects on emerging topics related to digital media studies. Topics include, for example, the social impact of global media platforms such as issues of data surveillance and privacy; the impact of machine/ algorithm-driven media content. As also trends shaping the global media/news Industry due to platform-driven content. Towards this end, Vandana conducts faculty workshops and engages in in-depth discussions with faculty to develop publishable research projects.

Vandana’s work spans and connects many fields of study. Her published work includes scholarly journal articles about electronic surveillance, transnational media, globalism, nationalism, and liberal education. She has produced two documentary films that were aired on the PBS channel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. One of her films won West Michigan’s Eclipse award for Best Writing. Vandana has been invited by the local media and organizations in West Michigan to lend her expertise on media-related topics. She has addressed international audiences as a keynote speaker at conferences. She has served on the Advisory Boards of Grand Valley State University’s Shakespeare Festival and Civil Discourse initiative.

Before her life in America, Vandana worked as a reporter and feature writer in Mumbai, India, for The Economic Times – a prominent south Asia financial daily. She has published articles in magazines and newspapers.