We are very happy to announce that Desirée Schmuck, a former long-term colleague in our department, will return to Vienna and become our new Professor of Media Change and Media Innovation, a position previously held by Homero Gil de Zuñiga. Professor Schmuck joins us from KU Leuven (Belgium), where she was Assistant Professor (tenure track) for Digital Media Effects in the School for Mass Communication Research.

Desirée Schmuck studied Psychology at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) as well as Communication Science at the University of Vienna. From 2014-2019, she was a (pre- and postdoctoral) researcher within our department, where she obtained her PhD in 2017. Her PhD thesis titled Us against them: The effects of right-wing populist political advertising on intergroup attitudes received the 2018 Doc.Award of the University of Vienna and the City of Vienna. After her time in Vienna, Desirée Schmuck was a postdoctoral researcher ("Akademische Rätin auf Zeit") at the Department of Media and Communication at LMU Munich in Germany and Assistant Professor for Digital Media Effects at KU Leuven.

Her research interests are manifold, and deal with the consequences of media change and media innovation for the individual person, social relations and the development of society as a whole. In this regard, Desirée's work concentrates on the use and effects of digital media in childhood and adolescence, political engagement in digital environments, media change and (intergroup) relations, and self-determined interactions with media innovations. Her research has been published in various leading journals in the field of Communication Science and related disciplines, such as the Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society, Political Communication, and Communication Research, as well as receiving a host of honors and awards.

A very warm welcome (back) to Vienna, Desirée!