Jessalynn's Academic Bio:

Jessalynn Keller is a freelance journalist, media critic, and PhD student in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a Bachelors of Arts Honors from the University of Saskatchewan and a Master’s of Journalism from the University of British Columbia. She studies issues related to gender and the media, with her specific areas of research including girl studies, new media/blogs, post-feminism, popular culture, and ethnography. She received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for her Master’s research, which focused on third wave feminism in mainstream teen magazines. Jessalynn has received several awards and scholarships for her work, including the Bell Globe Media Award and the George Sakellaridis Memorial Scholarship. After graduating with her MJ she worked as a freelance journalist and researcher in New York City, Toronto, and Vancouver and also launched her own blog, Brazen Beauties, that looks at representations of girls and issues related to girlhood in popular culture.