Ava Francesca Battocchio is a third-year Information & Media Ph.D. student in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations. In addition to the Quello Center, they are affiliated with the Civic Infrastructure Lab and Rural Computing Research Consortium at Michigan State University. Ava Francesca holds a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising and Master of Science in Global Strategic Communication from Loyola University Chicago.
Their research centers on how rural and post-industrial community structures and collective identity shape hybrid civic storytelling networks, or how people come to share information that impacts civic life. Ava Francesca is particularly interested in former mining and manufacturing communities in the Great Lakes region that simultaneously grapple with economic changes and shifting media landscapes in the form of declining local news and inequities in digital access.