Bio

Dr. Leona M. Rios is a researcher, writer, and reluctant group chat participant who studies how people find, share, and trust information outside traditional media. Her work traces the pathways of informal news—from bustling Facebook swap groups in small-town America to encrypted chats that feel more like digital campfires than newsrooms. She’s currently affiliated with the University of Cascadia and consults with several unnamed labs on how machine learning intersects with human rumor. Her forthcoming book, “The Shadowfeed,” explores what happens to news when no one’s watching—but everyone’s listening. When she’s not analyzing signal decay in WhatsApp groups, Dr. Rios enjoys arguing with her neighborhood Facebook group moderator and teaching her smart speaker to fact-check itself.