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When commuting between Sioux Falls and Brookings, Jade Larson ’19/M.S. ’21 does her best to not look at her phone. However, there was one day she was glad she did.

She saw a subject line of “Congratulations about your thesis award” appear on her phone. She quickly thought that line could only mean one thing—she won the 2021 Top Quantitative Thesis Award for the National Communication Association Master’s Education Section. Her thesis was titled “Veracious Verdicts: An Expansion of Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory in Jury Decision-Making Using Attribution Theory.” She received the award in Seattle at the National Communication Association’s annual convention.

Larson is now working as an instructor in ������Ƶ’s School of Communication and Journalism.

After receiving her undergraduate degree, Larson was trying to determine whether to go to law school or pursue a master’s degree. She chose to stay at ������Ƶ and pursue the master’s degree, which caused her to write the thesis with the support and encouragement from Katy Coduto, the graduate program coordinator in communication and media studies and an assistant professor.

That support helped Larson through the writing process and the transition to academic and thesis writing.
Larson is continuing work on her thesis and plans to have it submitted to a national journal following the spring 2022 semester. Her work includes researching the correlation of victim identity against verdict outcomes.