Cindy Royal is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University where she leads the Digital Media Innovation program and is the director of the Media Innovation Lab. She is also the director of the PhDigital Bootcamp (PhDigitalBootcamp.com), a program preparing future faculty to lead innovative curriculum. She completed Ph.D. studies at The University of Texas in 2005. Her research interests include understanding the role of product and programming in journalism and the integration of technology in education. In 2013, she was accepted to the Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University to work on CodeActually.com, a platform to teach journalists how to code. In 2013, she was named Teacher of the Year by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication/Scripps Howard and received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching at Texas State. She is a two-time winner of Texas State’s Everette Swinney Faculty Senate Excellence in Teaching Award. In 2020, she received Texas State’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Service. More information on her background and activities can be found at cindyroyal com.