Tama Leaver is a Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. He's a regular media commentator, a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, a former president of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).

His research interests include children’s data, privacy and rights in an online world, including the impact of artificial intelligence on children; visual social media; the activity and regulation of big social media companies, especially in Australia; and the social, casual and mobile gaming landscape.

He has published in a range of journals including Social Media + Society, Information, Communication and Society, Popular Communication, Media International Australia, and First Monday. He is the author of Artificial Culture: Identity, Technology and Bodies (Routledge, 2012); co-editor of An Education in Facebook? Higher Education and the World’s Largest Social Network (Routledge, 2014) with Mike Kent; and Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) with Michele Willson; co-author of Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures (Polity, 2020) with Tim Highfield and Crystal Abidin; co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children (Routledge, 2021) with  Lelia Green, Donell Holloway, Kylie Stevenson and Leslie Haddon; and co-editor of Gaming Disability: Disability Perspectives on Contemporary Video Games (Routledge, 2023) with Katie Ellis and Mike Kent.

Tama has received teaching awards from the University of Western Australia, Curtin University, and in 2012 received a national Australian Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities and the Arts. He is @tama@aoir.social on Mastodon;  tamaleaver.bsky.social on BluekSky; and his web presence is www.tamaleaver.net.