Christopher Westgate
Profile
Dr. Christopher Joseph Westgate is a seasoned leader who bridges academic and co-curricular spaces to create transformative opportunities for all students. With 16 years of experience in higher education, he has designed programs that connect classroom learning and critical-cultural studies to community engagement and creative inquiry. Additionally, Dr. Westgate worked in the radio industry for over a decade, curating a set of experiences that have informed his approach to pedagogical design. His work reflects a commitment to the belief that education is most powerful when students connect theory and practice with purpose and meaning.
As a scholar, Dr. Westgate has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and volumes on Latine media, social identities, and popular music, contributing to conversations about representation in contemporary media. His 18 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, reviews, and entries can be found in the International Journal of Communication, Popular Music & Society, Media, Culture & Society, and elsewhere. Dr. Westgate has also presented at more than 50 international and national conferences, sharing his research on the intersections of media identities and industries.
Accomplishments
Appearances
Recent Appearances
Westgate, C. J. (2026). Launching an experiential learning task force: Building cross-campus momentum [Conference presentation]. National Association of Colleges & Employers, Denver, CO.
Westgate, C. J., Lynch, C., Luchini, K., & Eaton, H. (2026). The AI alignment gap: Mapping student practice against employer expectations in experiential learning [Conference presentation]. Society for Experiential Education, Savannah, GA.
Lynch, C., Freedman, J., Westgate, C. J., & Harrington, C. (2026). AI & internships: Data-driven insights from internship supervisors and students [Conference presentation]. Cooperative Education & Internship Association, Alexandria, VA.
Westgate, C. J. (2025). Streaming cultural voices: The dual impact of music platforms on Indigenous and Afro-Latine musicians [Conference presentation]. Media & Communication in Global Latinidades Pre-Conference, International Communication Association, Denver, CO.
Westgate, C. J. (2024). Collaborating below borders: Rosalía’s postcolonial “crossunders” in the Global South [Conference presentation]. Society for Cinema & Media Studies, Boston, MA.
Publications
Recent Publications
Westgate, C. J. (2026). Ana Macho’s archipelago: Performing reggaeton fluido for Puerto Rico. In R. A. Lind (Ed.), Race/gender/class/media: Considering diversity across audiences, content, and producers (pp. 197–202). Routledge.
Westgate, C. J. (2024). The first Spanish-language album to reach number one: El Último Tour del Mundo, Bad Bunny, and the Billboard 200. International Journal of Communication, 18, 1724–1744. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19204/4537