Jose Angel Maldonado is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of South Florida, specializing in Rhetorical Theory, Cultural Studies, Film and Television Criticism, and Contemporary Mexican Culture. His book, Falling to My Death: Vertical Rhetorics in Neoliberal Mexico (Clemson University Press, 2025), won the National Communication Association's (NCA) Diamond Anniversary Book Award, the Latina/o Communication Studies Division Outstanding Book Award, and the Death and Dying Division's Book of the Year Award. Falling to My Death combines memoir and cultural criticism of visual media to expose the normalization of violence as a rhetorical process. He received a PhD from the University of Utah in 2017 and his dissertation, Diana's Confession: Precarious Rhetoric in Post-NAFTA Mexico, won the Rhetoric Society of America Dissertation Award. His scholarly articles have won various honors. For example, Pltano's Pharmacy: The Republic's Taste of Its Own Medicine," won NCA's Critical and Cultural Studies Division Outstanding Article Award, and Mexico Pesimo: Colosio's Metanoic and Magnicidal Leadership," won NCA's Latina/o Communication Studies Division Outstanding Article Award. His research appears in the field's most prestigious journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication and Democracy, and Rhetoric & Public Affairs.