About

Kouross Esmaeli

I am a researcher, educator, and media producer having made documentaries and short form news reports for Democracy Now!, Aljazeera English, Press TV, Current TV and Papertiger TV. I received my PhD from NYU’s Department of Media, Culture and Communication in June 2018. My dissertation, “Testing Technology: Digital Mediation of Education in New York City,” is an ethnographic study of the changing position of teachers and students in light of the increasing use of digital educational technologies in the NYC public schools. I will be publishing my research in the next few years under the title Schools & Screens: American Public Education in the Digital Age.

After teaching at the American University of Beirut for the 2018-19 school year, I took the position of Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Pitzer College from 2019-2024. I am now VAP at the Media Studies department at Pomona College. I have also taught at the New England Institute of Art, the School of Visual Arts, Fordham University and NYU, the American University of Beirut and now at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA. Before moving to Beirut and then Los Angeles, I was a teaching artist at various high schools across NYC including Pace University High School, New Design High School, and Lyons Community School.