Kathrin Fahlenbrach is professor for film- and media studies at the University of Hamburg (since 2011). There she is currently director of the Institute for Media and Communication Studies. Her main research topics are: visual aesthetics of protest in the media, embodiment, affects and aesthetics in film, television, and video games, audiovisual metaphors, as well as cognitive film- and media theory.

Her publications include Audiovisuelle Metaphern. Zur Körper- und Affektästhetik in Film und Fernsehen (Schüren, 2010; engl.: Audiovisual Metaphors. Embodied and Affective Aesthetics in Film and Television) and Embodied Metaphors in Film, Television, and Video Games. Cognitive Approaches (ed., Routledge, 2016). Also, Kathrin Fahlenbrach is a co-editor of Audiovisuelle Emotionen. Emotionsdarstellung und Emotionsvermittlung durch audiovisuelle Medien (with Anne Bartsch/Jens Eder, Herbert von Halem Verlag, 2007; engl.: Audiovisual Emotions. Representing and Performing Emotions in Audiovisual Media) and Media and Revolt. Strategies and Performances from the 1960s to the Present (with Rolf Werenskjold/Erling Sivertsen, Berghahn Books, 2014).

She is fellow and, since 2014, board-member of the Society for the Cognitive Study of the Moving Image (SCSMI).