Angela Ragsdale is a fourth-year doctoral student specializing in Mediated Communication and Identity, Diversity, and Communication. Her research examines the intersection of media effects, identity, narratives, and representation, with particular attention to how individuals who are underrepresented or misrepresented in media use platforms such as social media and video games to construct and express their own self-representations. She investigates how these digital self-presentations influence offline wellbeing and how the interactive nature of gameplay can foster prosocial outcomes.

Angela earned her B.A. in Psychology and Anthropology, along with a minor in Linguistics, from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Her Senior Honors Thesis explored how positive media representation influences ethnic-racial identity development among emerging Hispanic/Latine adults through a media psychology lens. At the University of Missouri, she currently serves as a teaching assistant and lab instructor for COMM 2100: Media and Society and has taught COMM 1200: Public Speaking for two years as Instructor of Record. She is also actively involved in collaborative research through the Media Diversity Center (MDC), where she works as a research associate and serves as the Research Coordinator.