I was awarded my doctoral degree in February 2018 at the University of Vienna. I was holding a pre-doctoral and post-doctoral research position at the Advertising and Media Effects Research Group (Chair: Prof. Dr. Jörg Matthes) of the Department of Communication at University of Vienna. Starting from January 2020 I work as a FWO postdoctoral research fellow at the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research (Chair: Kathleen Beullens, PhD) at KU Leuven.

My research interests are related to several aspects of psychological wellbeing, particularly in the context of (social) media use and smartphone use. I study different aspects within the fields of media psychology (e.g., stereotypes, subjective wellbeing, sexualization) and body image research (e.g., self-objectification) by applying a multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach.

I have published in leading SSCI-ranked journals in the fields of communication research, women’s studies, and psychology (e.g., Communication Research; Psychology of Women Quarterly; Media Psychology; Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking) and my work has been awarded several competitive prizes (e.g., ICA Kyoon Hur Dissertation Award, Austrian Award of Excellence, Sowi-Doc.Award). 

I’m currently involved in research projects dealing with the consequences of digital media in children’s and adolescents’ everyday lives. Given the dominant presence of smartphones in adolescent lives, adolescents’ daily experiences might have fundamentally changed. In my 3-year-fellowship I will investigate how smartphones may intervene with positive life experiences and under which conditions they may enhance or reduce the positive effects of these experiences in adolescent lives.

Other research projects I am involved in aim to investigate the effects of ideal media messages shown on social media on subjective wellbeing and behavior-related outcomes.