Kathrin Karsay joins us from KU Leuven's School for Mass Communication Research and takes over the Tenure Track Professorship for Entertainment Research. After spending three years in Belgium as Postdoctoral Fellow (2020-2021) and Assistant Professor for Media and Health Communication (2021-2023), Kathrin returns to Vienna where she previously completed her master and doctoral studies.

Kathrin Karsay studied Communication Science at the Universities of Salzburg and Vienna. From 2013-2020, she was a researcher at our department, working with Hannes Haas and later within Jörg Matthes's research group. In 2018, she completed her PhD thesis entitled Objects of desire. Content and effects of sexualizing media, which received numerous honors, e.g., the Award of Excellence by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, as well as the Kyoon Hur Dissertation Award of the International Communication Association's Mass Communication Division. In 2020, Kathrin became a Postdoctoral Fellow at KU Leuven, and was promoted to Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in September 2021.

Her research focuses on media effects, particularly in entertainment media, and makes use of communication science and social psychological theories to explore topics, such as health and body image, media use among children and adolescents, and the role of mobile media. Her research has been funded by various third-party funding partners, such as the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), FWO, and the City of Vienna, and her work has been published in several international journals, including Communication Research, Popular Media and Culture, and Media Psychology.

Welcome (back) to Vienna and our department, Kathrin!