Hi, I'm Ryland. I am an MA student researcher in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, as well as a Pre-Doctoral Research Assistant at Microsoft Research New England’s Social Media Collective. My work-in-progress MA thesis assesses TikTok as a platform for climate crisis communication, while developing methods to better understand these highly algorithmic and navigationally obfuscated digital platforms. At the Social Media Collective, I support the work of Mary Gray, Tarleton Gillespie, Nancy Baym and danah boyd, who are currently working on research related to the ethics of technology, especially artificial intelligence. I have contributed to numerous interdisciplinary research projects related to environmental communication and digital social science research methods. I am a leader within my graduate school community, having served as Graduate Caucus Co-chair, Student-Faculty Seminar facilitator, as an integral member to the 2022 and 2023 Conduits Graduate Conference Organizing Committees, and as the co-founder of the university-wide Climate Communication Grad Student Working Group. I have a background in documentary film production, and I feel most at home in creative spaces like SFU’s Media & Maker Commons, where I worked as an instructor for two years.

This site hosts a selection of my academic and creative works.