About
Short bio
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon is an experienced professor interested in organizational culture and change. She has worked at the intersection of journalism/media innovation and well-being. She is the author of The Paradox of Connection, Happiness in Journalism, Journalism Research that Matters, and Social Media at BBC News.
Longer bio
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon is Associate Professor, Cowles Fellow in Media Management (since 2016), and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication (since 2023). She is also a Waldfogel Scholar of the College of Liberal Arts (2023-26) and McKnight Presidential Fellow (2022-2025) at the University of Minnesota. She is also a Visiting Researcher at the Oslo Metropolitan University Department of Journalism and Media (2019-2024) through her grant on the anti-disinformation industry.
Her interests lie in organizational culture and change. She has worked at the intersection of journalism/media innovation and well-being. She is the author/co-author of The Paradox of Connection, Happiness in Journalism, Journalism Research that Matters, and Social Media at BBC News.
She was also Director of the Minnesota Journalism Center at the Hubbard School (2017-2022). Before joining the University of Minnesota, she was Executive Director and Research Scholar at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School (2013-16). She was a fellow at Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University where she researched mobile chat applications (2016). She also worked in communications and project management in corporate and non-profit environments. She earned her BA (McGill), MSc (Université de Montréal), and PhD (City, University of London) in Sociology.