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Doctor of Philosophy (Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf)
Katharina Esau is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) at the Queensland University of Technology, working under the Digital Publics program on Professor Axel Bruns's Australian Laureate Fellowship project "Determining the Drivers and Dynamics of Partisanship and Polarisation in Online Public Debate".
Katharina holds a PhD in Communication and Media Science from the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, titled “Communication Forms and Dynamic of Deliberation”. 2022 she received a Best Dissertation Award from the Democracy Foundation of the University of Cologne.
Her research focuses on political communication, digital public sphere and democratic innovations. Her previous teaching includes introductory courses to Communication and Media Studies and on Media Systems and Industries, advanced seminars on theorising and analysing communication and opinion-formation processes online, and practical courses on how to improve the design of online participation platforms.