Kio Stark is the author of When Strangers Meet, the novel Follow Me Down and the independent learning handbook Don’t Go Back to School. She writes, consults, teaches, and speaks around the world about stranger interactions, independent learning, and how people relate to technology.
Beyond strangers, Kio's abiding fixations include the invisibility of technology; how people learn; practices of generosity and mutual aid; the culture, infrastructure, and ephemera of cities; mythology and fairy tales; and advocating for independent learning, data literacy, social justice, and feminism.
Kio did doctoral work at Yale University’s American Studies program, where she thought a lot about the history of science and medicine, urban studies, art, and race, and then dropped out. In other lives, Kio has worked in journalism, interactive advertising, community research, and game design. She has taught about stranger interactions at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and serves frequently as an advisor to the Knight News Challenge competition.