Lori Morimoto is an Assistant Professor (General Faculty) in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. She researches transnational/transcultural fandoms and transnational media co-production and distribution. Her work has been published in East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, Transformative Works and Cultures, Participations, Asian Cinema, and Mechademia: Second Arc. She has also contributed to Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (NYU Press, 2017), The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom (Routledge, 2018), A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), and Fan Studies Primer: Method, Research, Ethics (Iowa, 2021). Lori teaches undergraduate courses on media fandom, East Asian film and media, television, and videographic criticism.

Outside of work, Lori splits her time between Charlottesville and her family in Northern Virginia, where her spouse and two teenagers live. She does genealogy in her spare time and fangirls over Hannibal, Good Omens, What We Do in the Shadows, The Untamed, Check, Please!, and Our Flag Means Death. Lori was born in West Texas, grew up in Hong Kong, and met her (Californian) spouse in Tokyo.