Dr. Meredith C. Ward is a film and media historian and theorist, with a specialty in sound and sound media. She received her Ph.D from the Screen Cultures Program at Northwestern University, where she wrote her dissertation, Chatter, Reverberation, and the Static in the System: Noise in American Cinema Culture. This work won the 2016 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Dissertation Award for the best dissertation submitted to the international organization for film and media scholars. Her forthcoming book, also entitled The Static in the System, is under contract with The University of California Press and is anticipated in 2018.
She is the faculty advisor to the Johns Hopkins Film Society, and advises on their annual Johns Hopkins Film Festival. She is also the founder of and faculty advisor to Studio North, JHU's own student-run film production company that funds prestigious student projects. She has served as an advisor to Woodrow Wilson fellows, PURA grant recipients, and students writing senior humanities theses. She was a finalist for the 2012 and 2013 Excellence in Teaching Awards, and the 2016 Undergraduate Advising Award.