Katie is a Ph.D. candidate in media studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on the global television industries, streaming, and sports television. Her disseration, "Imagining the Indian Football Audience: Distributing the English Premier League in India," interrogates how and to what extent the EPL is “localized” for Indian audiences. The dissertation argues how, over a nearly thirty-year period from 1996 to 2024—in which transnational television transitioned from satellite to streaming—distribution strategies for the EPL reinforced local hegemonic constructions of “quality audiences” for Indian television. By associating an English league with urban, English, and Hindi-speaking audiences in the major metros, transnational television distributors such as Star differentiated the EPL’s respectable, aspirational niche audience from both cricket’s mass audience and domestic Indian football’s “developing” regional audience.
Prior to her doctoral work, Katie received her master's degree from Georgetown University's Communication, Culture, & Technology program and her Bachelor's degree in International Affairs from The George Washington University. She also has professional experience working in foreign policy and in finance.
Katie is a Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow. She served as co-managing editor of Flow Journal and book editor of Velvet Light Trap. She was also awarded the 2024 Roderick P. Hart Student Achievement Award. Her essay, “Cosmopolitan Ambivalence: Branding the English Premier League in India.” won the 2025 SCMS Media Industries Scholarly Interest Group Graduate Student Writing Award.
Areas of Interest: Global Media, Media Industries, Sports Television, Globalization