Dr. Katja Lee is a Lecturer in Media and Communication and Course Coordinator of the Master of Strategic Communication program at the University of Western Australia. Her research explores the ways in which people represent themselves and their life stories through different media over time from serialised magazine articles in the early twentieth century to the memoir boom in the late twentieth century to the rise of social media in the past few decades. Her work is particularly interested in the cultural and technological conditions that shape and inform how women make themselves and their stories public. She has published extensively on fame and image management, persona, and life writing including a monograph, Limelight (2020), which charts the rise of the celebrity autobiography over the twentieth century. Limelight was shortlisted for the Gabrielle Roy Prize. She is the editor of A Cultural History of Fame in the Modern Age (2025) and was a Managing Editor at Persona Studies for seven years.

Katja’s current research is investigating the life stories of women in Australia’s mining and resources sector.

Katja is open to inquiries regarding postgraduate supervision in any of her areas of key research interests including women’s fame, life writing across media, and re/presentation strategies impacting women in mining and resources.

Education

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow: Simon Fraser University, 2015-2017

PhD, McMaster University, 2015

J’explore French Language Program, Université Laval, 2011

MA, University of British Columbia, 2003

BA (Honours), Simon Fraser University, 2001

Celebrity & Fame

Women’s Life Writing

Life Writing Across Media

Persona & Identity Strategies

Katja’s teaching spans two decades across two countries. She has a particular interest in learning through creative play and experimentation, and developing authentic assessments that simulate industry practices. To ensure students are developing essential capabilities in GenAI she has researched and developed an GenAI literacy framework which structures her teaching, particularly in the first-year space.

She is a recent recipient of a 2024 UWA Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and teaches across undergraduate, honours, and postgraduate levels of study, including:

COMM1001: Power, Participation and Meaning

COMM1002: Cultures, New Media and Communications

COMM3004: Journalism and Strategic Communication

COMM5701: Strategic Communication in a Digital Era