Dr. Christopher Ali is the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and Professor of Telecommunications in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include: communication policy and regulation, rural broadband, critical political economy, critical geography, and local news.Christopher’s current research focuses on broadband policy and deployment in the US, specifically in rural areas. His new book, Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity (MIT Press, 2021), examines the complicated terrain of rural broadband policy in the US. Farm Fresh unpacks the politics of broadband policy, asking why millions of rural Americans lack broadband access and why the federal government, and large providers, are not doing more to connect the unconnected.Christopher has published in numerous internationally ranked academic journals including: Communication Theory, Media Culture & Society and Telecommunications Policy. Christopher’s work has been published in The New York Times, The Hill, Washington Monthly, and Realtor Magazine. He is a frequent commentator on the subjects of broadband, media policy, and local news, with interviews in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, CNET, CBC, Bloomberg, and other major national and international news outlets. He has testified before the Senate Commerce Committee, and presented work before the House Democrats House Task Force on Rural Broadband, the New York State Blue Ribbon Commission on Re-Imagining New York, and numerous state and county governments.Christopher is currently the Chair of the Communication Law and Policy Division of the International Communication Association, and associate editor of the journal Communication Law and Policy. Previously, he held fellowships at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism (2016-2017 and 2020-2021) Benton Institute for Broadband and Society (2019-2020), the Global Future Council of the World Economic Forum (2018), the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communications (CARGC) (2017), and the University of Fribourg in Fribourg Switzerland (2015).Authored books:Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity (MIT Press, 2021)Media Localism: The Policies of Place (University of Illinois Press, 2017)Local News in a Digital World (Tow Center for Digital Journalism, 2017)Echoes of Gabriel Tarde: What we know better or different 100 years later (USC Annenberg Press, 2014)