Laura Illia will begin as Professor for "Business Communication" at the University of Fribourg’s Department of Communication and Media Research (DCM) of the University of Fribourg this fall term. She succeeds Dominique Bourgeois who retired last summer.

Prof. Dr. Laura Illia studied communication science at the Università della Svizzera italiana where she also obtained her doctorate in "Business Studies and Communication". She was then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). For the last ten years, Laura Illia has been a professor at IE University in Madrid where she also directed the Master’s program in Corporate and Marketing Communication.

In her research, Prof. Illia focuses on how discourses and narratives contribute to our understanding of business. Specifically, she looks into questions of legitimacy, reputation, and corporate social responsibility. In her latest publications, she analyzed the legitimation of organizations on social media and the use of new media by companies in the dialogue with their stakeholders.

At the DCM, Laura Illia will play a key role in developing the Master’s program in "Business Communication". She will also be involved in setting up the new French-language bachelor’s program in communication due to start in 2022.

Her new colleagues at the DCM are looking forward to working together and wish Laura Illia a good start at the University of Fribourg.