Rebecca Black

Associate Professor of Informatics, University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine

Rebecca W. Black received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2006. Her research centers on the literacy and socialization practices of young people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds who are writing and participating in online, popular culture-inspired environments. This work includes an explicit focus on the 21st century skills and forms of literacy and learning that youth are engaging with in online spaces. Dr. Black’s work has been published in Teachers College Record, Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, the International Journal of Learning and Media, and E-learning. Her book exploring how English language learning youth represent their cultural and linguistic identities through fan fiction texts was published by Peter Lang in the Spring of 2008.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of birdsong, bird brain, and DNA.

This paper changed my life: Embracing an early model for naturalistic neuroscience

A 1992 PNAS paper showed how birdsong upregulates the expression of an immediate early gene in bird forebrains. The work revealed to Ribeiro the importance of studying molecular responses in naturalistic contexts.

By Sidarta Ribeiro
14 July 2026 | 4 min read
Illustration of an open journal featuring lines of text and small illustrations of eyes and mouths.

Major ischemic events in autistic people, and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 13 July.

By Jill Adams
14 July 2026 | 1 min read
Illustration of lucid dreaming.

Watching the mind build a world: Lucid dreaming as a model for generative perception

Lucid dreaming offers a rare opportunity to observe and probe perception from within.

By Magdalena Paluchowska
13 July 2026 | 8 min read