Dr. Alex P. Leith (he/they)
Associate Professor (Tenured)Director, AURA Lab (Avatars, Users, Relationships, and Affect)
Office Phone: (618) 650-2245
Email: aleith@siue.edu
Website: apleith.com
AURA Lab: aura-lab-siue.github.io
LinkedIn: @APLeith
GitHub: @APLeith
ORCID: 0000-0003-1310-6763
About
My research examines how people form relationships, communicate, and behave in online and immersive environments—livestreaming platforms, social VR, and virtual meetings. I direct the AURA Lab (Avatars, Users, Relationships, and Affect) at SIUE, where students and collaborators study parasocial relationships, trust and safety, and the behavioral mechanics of online communities. I began with qualitative interpersonal communication research during my master's at SIUE and expanded into computational methods during my Ph.D. at Michigan State, where I built a distributed Raspberry Pi cluster to collect 321M+ Twitch chat messages for my dissertation. My current work combines surveys, experiments, interviews, and natural language processing—often in the same project—to study video games, streaming, VR/XR, and how identity (gender, race, LGBTQ+, mental health) is represented and experienced online.
Education
Ph.D., Information and Media, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
M.A., Speech Communication, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL
B.A., Communication, Brigham Young University–Idaho, Rexburg, ID
Research Interests
Social platforms and livestreaming; social VR and XR environments; parasocial relationships; trust, safety, and community governance; computational and mixed-methods research; natural language processing
Selected Research
Peer-Reviewed Journals
Leith, A.P., Lim, C., Foxman, M., Beyea, D., & Jeong, D.C. (2025). Stress and coping in VRChat: A mixed-method case study of the use of VRChat as a coping tool during the COVID-19 pandemic. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 20(100843). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100843
Bouzek, D.*, Foxman, M., Lim, C., & Leith, A.P. (2025). Balancing fun and professionalism in game development: The dark and light side of play in virtual meetings. Frontiers in Communication, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2025.1609776
Ratan, R.A., Lin, Q., Lim, C., Park, R., Lover, A., Han, E., Jang, D.*, Leith, A.P., & Bailenson, J.N. (2025). Time matters in VR: Students benefit from longer VR class duration, but certain outcomes decline after 45 minutes, with large individual variance. Computers & Education, 14(3), 466-477. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2025.105328
Lim, C.*, Leith, A.P., Ratan, R., & Bouzek, D.* (2025). Meeting needs: How social interaction anxiety, Zoom fatigue, relatedness, and demographics predict virtual meeting feature preferences. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 18, 100673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100673
Lim, C.*, Ratan, R., Foxman, M., Beyea, D., Jeong, D., & Leith, A.P. (2025). Examining attitudes about the virtual workplace: Associations between Zoom fatigue, impression management, and virtual meeting adoption intent. PLOS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312354
Beyea, D., Lim, C.*, Lover, A., Foxman, M., Ratan, R., & Leith, A.P. (2025). Zoom fatigue in review: A meta-analytical examination of videoconferencing fatigue's antecedents. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 17(100571). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100571
Foxman, M., Beyea, D., Leith, A.P., Ratan, R.A., Chen, V.H.H., & Klebig, B. (2022). Beyond genre: Classifying virtual reality experiences. IEEE Transactions on Games, 14(3), 466-477. https://doi.org/10.1109/TG.2021.3119521
Leith, A.P., & Gheen, E.* (2022). Twitch in the time of quarantine: The role of engagement in needs fulfillment. Psychology of Popular Media, 11(3), 275-280. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000372
Leith, A.P. (2021). Parasocial cues: The ubiquity of parasocial relationships on Twitch. Communication Monographs, 88(1), 111-129. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2020.1868544
Ratan, R.A., Fordham, J., Leith, A.P., & Williams, D. (2019). Women keep it real: Avatar gender choice in League of Legends. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 22, 254-257. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2018.0302
DeGroot, J.M., & Leith, A.P. (2018). R.I.P. Kutner: Parasocial grief following the death of a television character. OMEGA — Journal of Death and Dying, 77, 199-216. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222815600450
Leith, A.P., Ratan, R.A., & Wohn, D.Y. (2016). The (de-)evolution of evolution games: Analyzing the accuracy of evolution depiction in video games. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 25, 655-664. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-016-9620-x
Editorials
Beyea, D., Foxman, M., Ratan, R., Klebig, B., Leith, A.P., & Chen, V.H.H. (2025). Metaverse-mediated communication: A call for theory-driven XR research [Editorial]. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 37(2), 61-63. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000465
Books & Open Educational Resources
Leith, A.P. (2024). Quantitative research in mass communications: R and RStudio. Bookdown.
Conference Proceedings
Lim, C.*, Leith, A.P., Foxman, M., Ratan, R., & Klebig, B. (2025, January). The Hyperpersonal Model of Communication in virtual meetings: Exploring the roles of fatigue, social interaction anxiety, muting, and avatar use in meeting engagement. Proceedings of the 58th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Milik, O., Jang, D.*, Foxman, M., Klebig, B., Beyea, D., Leith, A.P., & Ratan, R. (2024, November). Focusing on virtual groups: A method for focus group interviews in XR/VR group settings. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2024.
Foxman, M., Bouzek, D.*, Lim, C.*, Ratan, R., Klebig, B., Leith, A.P., & Beyea, D. (2024, July). Making a virtual playground: Values-based game design in meeting platforms. Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2024 Conference: Playgrounds.
Lim, C.*, Foxman, M., Leith, A.P., Meshi, D., & Ratan, R. (2024, July). Wanting playfulness to counter fatigue from virtual meetings: Associations with social interaction anxiety and workaholism. Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2024 Conference: Playgrounds.
Foxman, M., Bouzek, D.*, Ratan, R., & Leith, A.P. (2023, June). Virtually limited: Boundaries of play in virtual reality production. Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2023 Conference: Limits and Margins of Games.
Leith, A.P., Foxman, M., Onuche, M.*, Ratan, R., & Lim, C.* (2023, June). Mixed feelings and realities: Joyful to nauseating sentiments about VR on Twitter. Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2023 Conference: Limits and Margins of Games.
Foxman, M., Leith, A.P., Beyea, D., Klebig, B., Chen, V.H.H., & Ratan, R. (2020). Virtual reality genres: Comparing preferences in immersive experiences and games. CHI PLAY '20: Extended Abstracts of the 2020 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 237-241). ACM Digital Library. https://doi.org/10.1145/3383668.3419881
Leith, A.P. (2019, October). Playing games for others: Constructing a gameplay livestreaming taxonomy. Proceedings of Meaningful Play 2018 (pp. 372-379). ETC Press. https://doi.org/10.1184/R1/9995969
Book Chapters
Fordham, J., Leith, A.P., & Ratan, R.A. (2017). League of Legends: Summoning a league of their own. In J. Banks, R. Mejia, & A. Adams (Eds.), 100 greatest video game franchises (pp. 102-104). Rowman & Littlefield.
Leith, A.P., & Fordham, J. (2017). Assassin's Creed: Leap of faith through historiophoty. In J. Banks, R. Mejia, & A. Adams (Eds.), 100 greatest video game franchises (pp. 11-12). Rowman & Littlefield.
Leith, A.P., & Ratan, R.A. (2017). Super Smash Bros.: Fight with the one that brung ya. In J. Banks, R. Mejia, & A. Adams (Eds.), 100 greatest video game franchises (pp. 178-180). Rowman & Littlefield.
* signifies SIUE student author
Grants
External
2021-2025: $1,599,851 — NSF FW-HTF-R: Collaborative Research: Virtual Meeting Support for Enhanced Well-Being and Equity for Game Developers. Ratan, R.A., Foxman, M., Leith, A.P., Beyea, D., & Winn, B.
Internal
2023-2024: $6,088 — OER Adoption, Adaptation, and Implementation Incentive Program. Leith, A.P.
2021-2022: $2,000 — New Faculty Incentive Program. Leith, A.P.
Courses Taught
FST 101: Succeeding & Engaging at SIUE
MC 323: Digital Publishing and Design
MC 327: Design and Writing for the World Wide Web
MC 422: Strategic Media Writing
MC 451: Research Methods in Mass Media
MC 471: Special Topics — Introduction to Data Analytics in Journalism and Mass Communications
MC 471: Special Topics — Social Media Analytics
MC 501: Research Methods for Mass Communications
MC 590: Independent Study in Mass Communications
