Tessa Jolls is President and CEO of the Center for Media Literacy, a position she has held since 1999. She also founded the Consortium for Media Literacy, a nonprofit which provides research and a quarterly leadership publication. Jolls was awarded the 2020 NATO Fulbright Research Award in Brussels, as well as Visiting Scholar positions at American University/Brussels, UCLouvain, and the University of Latvia Faculty of Social Sciences. She also served as a 2019 Fulbright Specialist for a two-week assignment in Bulgaria.

In 2015, Jolls received the Global Media and Information Literacy Award, in recognition of her work in Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue, from the UNESCO-initiated GAPMIL, in cooperation with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). In 2014, Jolls was honored with the International Media Literacy Award by Gateway Media Literacy Partners; in 2013, she was recognized with the Jesse McCanse Award for Individual Contribution to Media Literacy by the National Telemedia Council. She was invited to attend the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Education, WICT Senior Executive Summit in March, 2018.