Mihaela Popescu
Contact
Bio
Appointments
Mihaela Popescu, Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Communication & Media, currently serves as the Director of the Teaching Resource Center and the Faculty Director of the Extended Reality for Learning (xREAL) Lab. She served as the Interim Chair of the Department of Communication & Media during 2025-26.
Research and teaching interests
Mihaela Popescu’s research examines privacy and surveillance in digital and emerging media, with particular attention to artificial intelligence, algorithmic systems, immersive media, and human-machine communication. Her teaching spans communication research methods, digital cultures, media law and policy, and emerging-media topics including immersive media, algorithmsand democracy, disinformation, and privacy and surveillance. Her work in faculty development additionally focuses on emerging technologies and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Selected publications
- Baruh, L., & Popescu, M. Privacy as a Right to Becoming: The Work of Self in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Forthcoming.
- Baruh, L., & Popescu, M. (2026). “Organizational Practices and the Cycle of Resignation.” In C. Lutz,C. P. Hoffmann, & A. Tamò-Larrieux (Eds.), Advancing the Study of Privacy Cynicism, Apathy and Resignation in the Digital Society. Edward Elgar Publishers.
- Baruh, L., & Popescu, M. (2025). “Privacy.” Oxford Bibliographies. https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756841-0315
- Popescu, M., Baruh, L., & Sudhakar, S. (2024). “Role-based privacy cynicism and local privacy activism: How data stewards navigate privacy in higher education.” Big Data & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241240664
- Malik, N., Prado, W. L., Lappan, S., Popescu, M., Haddock, B., & Hill, J. O. (2022). “Development of an Extended-Reality (XR)-Based Intervention to Treat Adolescent Obesity.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(7), 4264. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074264
- Baruh, L., & Popescu, M. (2017). “Big Data Analytics and the Limits of Privacy Self-Management.” New Media & Society, 19, 579–596. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815614001
- Popescu, M., & Baruh, L. (2013). “Captive but Mobile: Privacy Concerns and Remedies for theMobile Environment.” The Information Society, 29. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2013.825358
Recent graduate teaching
Recent graduate teaching includes Qualitative Research Methods in Communication (Spring 2025), Topics in Media Studies: Immersive Media and the Metaverse (Spring 2024), and Topics in Media Studies: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Fake News (Spring 2022).
Dr. Popescu also regularly supervises graduate theses and projects, independent studies, comprehensive examinations, internships, and thesis and project proposals.
Additional courses taught include Introduction to Graduate Studies, Quantitative Methods in Communication, Digital Cultures, Digital Media and Communication, Media History and Institutions, Communication Research Methods, Media Effects, Communication Law and Policy, Media Sex and Violence, and Gender, Race, and Media.
Education
Mihaela Popescu is a Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Communication & Media at California State University, San Bernardino. She earned her Ph.D. and an M.A. in Communication Studies from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Society & Politics from the Central European University, and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Bucharest.