Cara Finnegan is a Professor in the Department of Communication. She joined the university in 1999 after completing her Ph.D. at Northwestern University. She holds affiliated appointments in the Center for Writing Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Art History. She was named a University Scholar in 2017.

Finnegan's research examines the role of photography as a tool for public life. Photographs are powerful forms of communication: they visualize social issues, make visible those who are often invisible, and foster or limit bonds of identification. Her book-length projects are best described as rhetorical histories of photography, in that she variously examines the production, composition, circulation, and reception of photographs at specific moments in U.S. history. Her most recent book, Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression was published by University of Illinois Press in 2015.

During 2016-17, Finnegan held a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship, which supported research and writing on her current book project, American Presidents and the History of Photography from the Daguerreotype to the Digital Age.