PHILADELPHIA -- A professor from the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication and a researcher from Penn Annenberg Public Policy Center have been named 2001 International Communication Association award winners.

Larry Gross, a professor of communications, is the recipient of the B. Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award. Amy Jordan, a senior research investigator, has been named the recipient of the Most Important Applied/Public Policy Research Award. The announcements were made at the International Communication Association recently concluded annual conference in Washington, DC..

Gross received The Fisher Mentorship Award in recognition of his role in influencing the next generation of scholars and researchers in communication. He has supervised 40 doctoral dissertations and 140 master theses and served on dissertation committees in four countries. His courses focus on art and communication, the social psychology of communication, the content and effects of media and cultural studies.

As director of APPC research on educational children television, Jordan studies the effect of the Children Television Act on parents and young television viewers. She conducts annual analyses of the content of children television programs and national surveys of parents and children television viewing. The research findings are disseminated each year in reports to academics and government policy makers.

The International Communication Association was established 51 years ago to give communication scholars and researchers from around the world a forum for sharing research findings. Joseph Cappella, a professor of communications at Penn Annenberg School, is the ICA outgoing president.