Her book, Instant Identity: Adolescent Girls and the World of Instant Messaging, was published by Peter Lang Publishing in 2007, and she has published other chapters in Girl Wide Web: Girls, the Internet and the Negotiation of Identity (Peter Lang, 2005) and Women in Mass Communication (Sage, 2007). She has also published work in washingtonpost.com and The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, CNN.com, and elsewhere. Thiel-Stern graduated with an M.A. in Communication, Culture and Technology from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Iowa.