Hyunjin Seo (pronounced: hen-jin suh) is University Distinguished Professor and Oscar Stauffer Chair in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas where she served as Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development. She is also the founding director of the KU Center for Digital Inclusion, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and other grant-making organizations. She has previously served as a faculty fellow and faculty associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and was the head of the Communication Technology division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Seo's research focuses on identifying emerging properties of networked communication and understanding their implications for social change, collective action and civic engagement. Seo is the author of Networked Collective Actions: The Making of an Impeachment (Oxford University Press, 2022), which examines intricate relationships between social institutions and agents during South Korean collective actions directed at political changes. She strives to inform organizations and policies by working closely with community members, policymakers and activists through her research. For example, she has led interdisciplinary programs that provide evidence-based technology education for justice-involved women and conducted empirical analyses of how low-income adults engage in digital learning and assess online information. She has served as Principal Investigator on over $6 million in competitively awarded external grants including $4 million from federal agencies such as National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

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Her research has received top paper awards at leading international conferences and has been published in top-tier journals such as Journal of Communication and New Media & Society. In 2025, the University of Kansas appointed Seo as a University Distinguished Professor, the highest academic honor awarded to faculty members. The University Distinguished Professorship recognizes faculty who have not only demonstrated “a truly distinguished record of scholarship” but are also regarded as “exceptional instructors who exhibit an interest in the growth and success of students, colleagues, and institutions.” In 2013, she was named a Docking Faculty Scholar, an award given by the University of Kansas to a faculty member who has “distinguished themselves early through exceptional research and teaching.” Seo received her Ph.D. in mass communications from Syracuse University in 2010 where her dissertation was awarded the all-university Doctoral Prize.

 

Seo teaches courses on social media, research methods and strategic campaigns. Her “excellence and innovation in teaching” earned her teaching awards from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the University of Kansas (e.g., teaching innovation award, service learning award and graduate educator award). Critical and analytical thinking and independent learning are at the core of her teaching, as she believes these are important tools students will require in whatever profession they pursue in an increasingly complex world. She strives to help students build reasoning abilities and spark their imagination. And her classes combine theoretical and hands-on approaches to issues by enabling students to work with real-world clients. Most of all, she is excited about the idea of potentially helping students realize their dreams.

 

Seo’s research and teaching are influenced by her professional experience in journalism and strategic communication in South Korea and the United States. Prior to her graduate studies in the United States, Seo was a foreign affairs correspondent for South Korean and international media outlets. During that time, she traveled extensively to cover major international events including six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear issues and gatherings of world leaders such as the United Nations and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit talks. She has also consulted to U.S. and Korea-based nongovernmental organizations regarding their social media strategies and relations with international press.