David Bulla, a doctoral student and teaching assistant at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications, focuses his research on the history of U.S. journalism. His dissertation explores suppression of the press in Indiana during the Civil War. Other research interests include convergence, sports communication, scholastic journalism and literary nonfiction.

Bulla earned his B.A. in English from UNC at Greensboro in 1983 and his M.A. in journalism from Indiana University in 2001. He has an extensive background in sports journalism, having worked for the Greensboro News & Record, Durham Sun, Winston-Salem Chronicle, Black College Sports Review and Peegs.com.

Bulla won sports journalism awards from the National Newspaper Publishers Association and the N.C. Press Association in 1986-87.

The UF doctoral student also taught high school journalism and English in North Carolina throughout the 1990s. He was the adviser of newspapers at Greensboro Smith and Dudley High Schools. He was vice president for newspapers of the N.C. Scholastic Media Association in 1999.

He has also won the Frances Wilhoit Award for research at Indiana University in 2001; had the outstanding student research paper in 2002 for the Scholastic Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication; and was named the top teaching assistant for UF's College of Journalism and Communications and honored as a top teaching assistant for the university in 2002-03.

During the summer, Bulla returns to Bloomington, Ind., and teaches basic reporting and sports reporting at the High School Journalism Institute at IU.

Bulla teaches introductory media writing, literary journalism and sports writing at UF. He is married to journalist Kalpana Ramgopal, a designer for the Lakeland, Fla., Ledger and an instructor at UF.