Eszter Hargittai is Professor in the Institute of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich where she heads the Internet Use and Society division. She is also Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

Hargittai's research focuses on the social and policy implications of digital media with a particular interest in how differences in people's Web-use skills influence what they do online. Her work has received awards from the American Sociological Association, the Eastern Sociological Society, the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association and the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference. In 2010, the International Communication Association selected her to receive its Outstanding Young Scholar Award.

In addition to her academic articles, her work has also been featured in numerous popular media outlets including the New York Times, BBC, CNNfn, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and many others. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the Markle Foundation, the Dan David Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, Nokia, Google, and Facebook, among others.

Hargittai is editor of «Research Confidential: Solutions to Problems Most Social Scientists Pretend They Never Have» (University of Michigan Press 2009), which presents a rare behind-the-scenes look at doing empirical social science research and co-editor (with Christian Sandvig) of Digital Research Confidential (The MIT Press, 2015), which presents more behind-the-scenes experiences of social scientific research in the digital age. She is currently editing a third methods volume forthcoming with Columbia University Press.

She writes an academic career advice column at Inside Higher Ed called Ph.Do.