About the Researcher
My name is Kirsi Cheas. I completed my PhD at the University of Helsinki in 2018. My thesis was titled "Broadening Views in Tabloids and Tablets : Proportions of Perspectives in American and Finnish World News Articles on South Africa and Brazil." This research integrated approaches of Latin American Studies and journalism studies. I have also studied Spanish philology, cultural and social anthropology, and science communication.
In my postdoctoral research I have specialized in collaborative investigative journalism across the U.S.-Mexico (Global North-South) border. My current Kone Foundation project expands this research to also examine collaborations across the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Moreover, my Kone Foundation project will push me beyond my comfort zone to study emotions, a topic I have been passionate about for a long time. I am currently affiliated at the School of Marketing and Communication at the University of Vaasa. My publications related to my media research are listed here.
I am also an advocate for inter- and transdisciplinarity. I am the founder of Finterdis - The Finnish Interdisciplinary Society, an at-large board member of the U.S.-based Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, and founding member of the Global Inter- and Transdisciplinary Alliance. I am actively involved in the organization of the AIS Conference in Oulu, Finland in June 2025. I have also contributed to academic publications on interdisciplinarity (Cheas 2019; 2021; a commentary in Vienni-Baptista, Fletcher, and Lyall 2023; Salmela, Vienni-Baptista & Cheas 2024; 2025).
I have spent altogether three years (2021-23, 2013-14) as a visiting scholar at New York University's Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. Prior to beginning my doctoral research in 2012, I worked as a freelance journalist, translator, and interned at the Finnish Ibero-American Institute in Madrid, Spain (2007-2009). I have also lived and worked in the Dominican Republic for several years.
Contact: kirsi-mari.cheas(at)uwasa.fi