K. Hazel Kwon (Ph.D. in Communication, SUNY-Buffalo) is a Professor and Research Director at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She is also the founder and lead researcher of the MIDaS (Media Information Data and Society) Lab. Her research explores digital media publics, focusing on how networked audiences make sense of news events in complex media environments, and how information disorder reshapes the processes of informing the public. She has published in leading journals on topics such as misinformation/disinformation dynamics, online civility, cyber-rumoring, and dark web communities.Her public engagement includes serving as a U.S.-Korea NextGen Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), partnering with the International Center for Journalists, and participating in the McCain Institute Cronkite Taskforce on Defending American Democracy in the Digital Age. Dr. Kwon has received numerous honors, including the Herbert S. Dordick Dissertation Award from the International Communication Association; the Emerging Scholars Award, MCSD Research Award, and Jung-Sook Lee Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC); the Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award; and several top paper awards from professional associations. She currently serves as a co-editor of the Journal of Communication Technology.