James E. Katz，Ph.D., is the Feld Family Professor of Emerging Media at Boston University’s College of Communication where he directs its Center for Mobile Communication Studies and Division of Emerging Media. His research on the internet, social media and mobile communication has been internationally recognized, and he is frequently invited to address high-level industry, governmental and academic groups on his findings.

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Prior to his Boston University appointment, he was Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Communication at Rutgers University (the title being the highest honor that Rutgers can bestow on one of its faculty) and served two terms as chair of its Department of Communication. Preceding his tenure at Rutgers, Katz was a Distinguished Member of Staff and director of the social science research unit at Bell Communications Research (Bellcore). Earlier, Katz taught at other universities, including the University of Texas, Austin, where he was elected chair of the Austin World Affairs Council.

 

His latest book is Philosophy of Emerging Media: Understanding, Appreciation, Application, edited with Juliet Floyd (Oxford University Press, 2016); he is also the co-author of The Social Media President: Barack Obama and the Politics of Citizen Engagement (with M. Barris and A. Jain, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). His many other books include Magic in the Air: Mobile Communication and the Transformation of Social Life, Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement, Expression (with Ronald E. Rice, Transaction Publishers, 2006) and editor of Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies (MIT Press, 2008).

 

Author of more than 100 scientific articles and papers, his publications have been translated into seven languages. In 2013, the Doctorem Honoris Causa (Dr.h.c.) was conferred by Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, BME). Among his other awards are the Ogburn career achievement award from the American Sociological Association and the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Twentieth-Century Communications History. He received from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano the Medalion per il Lectio Magistralis, an esteemed honor in the European academic tradition. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement Science (AAAS) and has been awarded fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, and MIT.

 

Additionally, he holds two US patents, one of which has been patented internationally. A member of many editorial boards, Katz was editor-in-chief of the International Communication Association’s flagship journal, Human Communication Research, and chair of its Division on Communication and Technology.