A former journalist, Debashis "Deb" Aikat (pronounced EYE-cut) theorizes the role of social media, international communication, news media and the future of communication in the digital age. He joined the school in 1995. An award-winning researcher and teacher, Aikat's research interests range across the media. His research has been published in book chapters and refereed journals such as First Amendment Studies, Health Communication, International Journal of Interactive Communication Systems and Technologies, Global Media and Communication, Electronic Journal of Communication, Popular Music and Society, Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, and publications of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Microsoft Corporation. His research has been funded by the government (e.g. the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI grants), corporate foundations (e.g. the Freedom Forum, the Scripps Howard Foundation) and the industry (e.g. IBM, Knight Ridder). He has consulted pro bono with the Town of Chapel Hill, Orange County (North Carolina), and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools among other organizations. The Scripps Howard Foundation recognized Aikat as the inaugural winner of the National Journalism Teacher of the Year award (2003) for his "distinguished service to journalism education." The International Radio and Television Society named him the Coltrin Communications Professor of the Year (1997). Aikat served from 2007 through 2013 as an elected member of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC), which evaluates journalism and mass communications programs in universities nationwide. He chaired in 2009-10 the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's (AEJMC) Committee on Teaching. He has served since 2011 as an elected member of the AEJMC's Committee on Professional Freedom & Responsibility, which is designated as the "conscience of the AEJMC" for fostering freedom, ethics, diversity and public service. Besides teaching on-campus classes, Aikat has taught online courses since 1997. He conceptualized in 1997 UNC's first online course in journalism and developed in 2003 a graduate-level online certificate program in technology and communication. He has won fellowships from renowned research institutions such as the Institute for the Arts and Humanities (2000 and 2003) and the Journalism Leadership Institute in Diversity (2004-05) of the AEJMC and the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC). His research and teaching excellence awards include a 2015 Scripps Howard Foundation Research Grant to Foster Academy-Industry Ties, AEJMC Top Research Paper Awards, a Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction (2003), UNC-Chapel Hill's highest honor for excellence in graduate studies, the David Brinkley Teaching Excellence Award (2000), AEJMC’s Baskett Mosse Award (1999), the Tanner Faculty Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (1999), the UNC-Chapel Hill Students' Undergraduate Teaching Award (1998), and an IBM Research Fund Award (1995). Several UNC-Chapel Hill senior classes honored him with the Edward Kidder Graham-Favorite Faculty Awards (1997 through 2005). He was selected by his peers to serve on the UNC Honor Court's Faculty Hearings Board Panel that adjudicates violations of academic honesty, personal integrity and responsible citizenship. He worked as a journalist in India for the Ananda Bazar Patrika's The Telegraph newspaper from 1984 through 1992. He also reported for the BBC World Service.