Afrooz
Mosallaeipour

Afrooz Mosallaei is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. Her research is focused on the dynamic relationship between digital media content, its impact on public opinion and behavior, and the influence of policymaking, particularly in the context of the climate crisis and social movements. Her doctoral dissertation explores climate-related news platformization, examining how news outlets selectively adapt and produce content in alignment with social media platforms' logic and the contemporary gatekeeping practices of newsroom editors.

She was awarded the COMPASS (Consortium on Media Policy Studies) fellowship, a program from the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University's Media, Inequality & Change Center. This fellowship allowed her to spend the summer of 2024 at Free Press, gaining firsthand experience in U.S. federal policymaking and contributing to the policy process through her research and writing. Additionally, she is a research affiliate at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC), where she collaborates with the experimental research team. 

Her work has been published in Digital Journalism and earned national recognition with an academic award from the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in 2022. She has also presented her research at notable conferences such as the National Communication Association (NCA) and the Canadian Communication Association (CCA).

Before joining Rutgers, Mosallaei earned her M.S. in Communication, Culture, and Media from Drexel University and holds a B.A. in Photography from the University of Tehran, Iran.