Sandra Becker is Assistant Professor of Media Industries & Cultural Diversity in the department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. She holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Groningen. Sandra's research interests lie at the intersections of Culturual Studies, TV and Film Studies, and Gender Studies. Her current research focuses on on- and off-screen representation of gender and diversity in audiovisual fiction production in the age of VoD streaming. She has designed and taught seminars on U.S. television and film, Mexico’s audiovisual landscape, masculinity portrayals in Latin American film and given guest lectures on gender representation in television fiction and production, masculinity studies, and U.S. popular culture.

Her interdisciplinary PhD project ‘Fathers of the Nation: U.S. Gender History, Racial Capitalism and White Fatherhood in Contemporary TV Series (2001–2016)’ approaches early-2000s TV series such as Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and Mad Men as cultural-historic artefacts and analyses the depiction of their white father protagonists against the backdrop of socio-economic and political events and gendered discourses at the beginning of the twenty-first century. She has published on on- and off-screen gender representation in historic drama (mini)series, gender dynamics in (post-)apocalyptic drama series, and the receptions of Latino/a portrayals in early-2000s U.S. crime series by Mexican young adult audiences.