Colin Rhinesmith

Colin Rhinesmith is a community media and digital equity scholar whose work connects PEG access, community technology, public computing, information policy, and local storytelling. He is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and director of the Digital Equity Action Research Lab. Before moving into academic research and teaching, Colin worked at Cambridge Community Television in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he served as Community Media Coordinator and later as Community Media and Technology Manager, overseeing the ComputerCENTRAL public computing lab, the NeighborMedia citizen journalism program, and a community wireless network.

His research examines the social, technical, and policy conditions that shape people's access to information and communication technologies, with particular attention to digital equity and the civic role of local media systems. Colin has held roles with the Berkman Center and Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, New America's Open Technology Institute, the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and the Metropolitan New York Library Council, where he founded the Digital Equity Research Center. In 2010, he received the ACM's Sue Miller Buske Leadership Award.

Colin's work carries the traditions and values of PEG access into larger scholarly and policy conversations about broadband, digital inclusion, and democratic participation. His scholarship is grounded in a field-level understanding of what it means to help people gain voice, skills, and civic presence through local media and technology institutions.