Rita M. Csapó-Sweet earned her BFA (painting) and BA (history) degrees from Washington University, and her masters and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. She is an associate professor of theatre and cinema arts and directs the Film Program in the Theater and Cinema Arts Department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Csapó-Sweet is an internationally recognized expert on the culture and politics of Eastern Europe, specializing in Hungarian media. For over twenty-five years, she curated programs on international cinema at the St. Louis Art Museum, the Harvard University Film Archive, the St. Louis International Film Festival, and the Mediawave Film Festival in Hungary. Csapó-Sweet has published over a dozen articles and book chapters on film, propaganda, media analysis, globalization, and children’s television in Critical Studies in Mass Communication; Filmmaker Magazine; The European Journal of Communication; and other scholarly publications. She also conducted educational research for the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), WGBH, and WQED.  

Csapó-Sweet received the President’s Award for Community Engagement from the University of Missouri System in 2013.