Patricia Ann Aufderheide is a scholar and public intellectual on media and social change, and an expert on fair use in media creation and scholarship. She is a University Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., where she has worked since 1989 and directed the Center for Social Media, later the Center for Media & Social Impact, beginning in 2000. She has received multiple awards and honors for her journalism and scholarship, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1994, and a Fulbright Research Fellowship in 1995, and a Distinguished Career Award in 2008 from the International Digital Media and Arts Association.