Colin Rhinesmith (he/they) is a nationally recognized expert on digital inclusion and broadband adoption in urban and rural communities. Rhinesmith is Associate Professor and Director of the Digital Equity Action Research (DEAR) Lab in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is also Research Fellow with the Quello Center at Michigan State University and Co-Editor-In-Chief of The Journal of Community Informatics.
Rhinesmith is the author of the forthcoming book, titled “Digital Equity Ecosystems: How Community Coalitions Reduce Inequality and Strengthen Democracy” that will be published by the University of California Press in June 2026.
Rhinesmith studies the social, technical, and policy contexts that shape people’s access to and use of information and communication technologies in local communities. His research contributes to the fields of community informatics, engaged scholarship, and information policy. Rhinesmith has worked with civil society organizations, government agencies, and philanthropic organizations to advance digital equity through community-engaged and participatory research projects.
Previously, Rhinesmith was Founder and Director of the Digital Equity Research Center at the Metropolitan New York Library Council and Associate Professor and Director of the Community Informatics Lab in the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science. He has been a Google Policy Fellow and an Adjunct Research Fellow with New America’s Open Technology Institute, Senior Advisor with the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Senior Fellow with the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, and Faculty Associate with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
Rhinesmith received his Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he was a U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services Information in Society Fellow, a Researcher with the Center for People and Infrastructures, and a Research Scholar with the Center for Digital Inclusion.
[Photo by Ruth Ganev. High-resolution bio photo]
