AI Summit 2025 Budapest

Dr. Petra Aczél

communication researcher

Prof. Dr. Petra Aczél is Professor and Head of Campus at Széchenyi István University. She was born in Budapest and completed her university and doctoral studies at Eötvös Loránd University, where she also received her habilitation in linguistics in 2011. She has been active in Hungarian higher education since 1995, teaching at institutions such as Corvinus University of Budapest, Eötvös Loránd University, and Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and has served as a visiting professor at the University of Richmond. Her research interests include verbal and visual rhetoric, public and persuasive communication, and new media communication. She has published more than 220 scholarly and professional works in Hungarian and English in these fields. Six of her PhD students have successfully defended their dissertations under her supervision, and she continues to be an active doctoral advisor. She is a member of the Research Excellence Council, Research Director of the Media Science Institute of NMHH, Chair of the MTVA Montágh Committee, President of the Media for the Family Foundation, Chair of the Libri Support Committee, and serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals. She has received numerous awards, including the Bonis Bona Lifetime Achievement Award (2023), the Hungarian Order of Merit, Knight’s Cross, Civil Division (2019), the European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities (2017), the Kenneth Rice Award (2015), and the Tamás Sebők Award of the Hungarian Communication Studies Association (2006). At Corvinus University, she was twice elected Teacher of the Semester/Year.