Cindy Royal

Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Texas State University

@CindyRoyal
Cindy Royal is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University where she is the founding director of the Media Innovation Lab and teaches in the Digital Media Innovation curriculum. She completed Ph.D. studies at The University of Texas in 2005. Her research interests include understanding the role of programming, data and product management in journalism and the integration of technology in education. Her students have gone on to digital media careers at The New York Times, Gannett, Blackbaud, Khoros, SXSW, Texas Tribune, Microsoft and more. In 2013, Cindy 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. In both 2018 & 2019, Cindy received the Everette Swinney Faculty Senate Excellence in Teaching Award. She received Texas State’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Service in 2020 and was given the Alumni Associations’s Teaching Award of Honor in 2022. More information on her background and activities can be found at cindyroyal com.