She earned her Ph.D. in Communication Studies (Media Studies) from the University of Iowa, and her M.A. and B.A. in Media Studies and Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Zimdars primarily researches television programming, communication policies, and global media industries, with her work appearing in Television and New Media, Popular Communication, and Flow. After her media literacy lesson went viral, Zimdars began working with a team of librarians and computer programmers to create tools for navigating “news” websites through the OpenSources project. She is also presently working on a co-edited anthology entitled Fake News, which brings together scholars who study media literacy, big data and technology, cultural studies, political science, and psychology in order to examine the history and contemporary realities of fake, misleading, propagandistic, and conspiratorial news.