Elisabeth Schimpfössl is a senior lecturer (associate professor) in Sociology and Policy at Aston University, Birmingham, where she teaches media sociology.

She is author of Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie, published by Oxford University Press in 2018. Rich Russians was awarded the 2019 Women’s Forum Book Prize of the British Association of Slavonic & East European Studies. Reviews appeared, among other places, in The Guardian, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs and Die Frankfurter Allgemeine. A Russian translation will be published in spring 2021 by Alpina. Elisabeth’s current research looks into the relation between wealth and power, both in Russia and the United Kingdom. She has also conducted research on media and journalism in Eastern Europe, with a focus on self-censorship. Recent publications from this work were published in Journalism and the European Journal of Communication. Elisabeth has a doctorate from the University of Manchester. Prior to pursuing a PhD, she worked in development cooperation under the Austrian Foreign Ministry.