Mary Chayko

As of 2021, she is the Distinguished Teaching Professor of Communication and Information and the director of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies at Rutgers SC&I. She directs the Digital Communication, Information and Media (DCIM) Minor and the Gender and Media Minor at SC&I. The DCIM minor program provides undergraduate students across the Rutgers academic spectrum with the technical, analytical, interpersonal, and entrepreneurial skills to work and lead effectively in digital spaces. The Gender and Media minor program, a partnership with the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, provides students with the ability to critically analyze and positively impact power imbalances in the media.

She was honored with the Rutgers University Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (2019) and as a Rutgers Faculty of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Contributor to Undergraduate Education (1994). She also created the first course to be honored with the Quality Matters (QM) “Seal of Approval” at Rutgers University, “Digital Technology and Disruptive Change,”” which was jointly designed and submitted for certification by instructional designer Denise Kreiger (2015).

Mary Chayko is an American sociologist and Distinguished Teaching Professor of Communication and Information at Rutgers University. She is the director of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies at Rutgers University's School of Communication and Information and a five-year Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Rutgers-New Brunswick Honors College (2017-2022). She is an affiliated faculty member of the Sociology Department and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at Rutgers.

She joined the School of Communication and Information (SC&I) at Rutgers University in 2014 as an Interdisciplinary Teaching Professor. She chaired the Social Media and Society Research Cluster at SC&I from 2014 to 2019. In 2017, she was appointed Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Rutgers-New Brunswick Honors College, where she has mentored dozens of honors students and teaches first-year Byrne seminars, entitled “Selfies and Digital Culture,” highlighting her research.

Mary Chayko served as Chairperson of the Sociology Department at Saint Elizabeth University (then The College of Saint Elizabeth) from 2001 to 2013. She began at the college as an Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor, and was tenured and promoted to Professor of Sociology in 2008.