معرفی
Lee Humphreys is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Cornell University, where she also completed her undergraduate studies in the 1990s. She leads the Cornell Center for Social Science's Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute (QuIRI) and serves as a key organizer for Cornell's Freedom of Expression symposium series.
Her research examines how people adopt communication technologies into everyday life, with particular focus on mobile media, social media practices, privacy and surveillance issues, and identity construction. Using qualitative field methods, she has documented evolving media practices from early mobile communication through contemporary social media platforms. Her influential book The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life (MIT Press, 2018) historicizes contemporary social media practices, arguing that sharing life details through media represents longstanding human practices rather than new narcissism.
Current research projects address mobile media, rural communication technologies, and Internet of Things applications. Her work reveals how people navigate privacy challenges while integrating new technologies into social interactions, with findings published consistently through 2025 in top communication journals.
Humphreys previously collaborated with Paul Messaris on the second edition of Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication and has directed significant research initiatives including the Instagram and Teens Study. She teaches courses on qualitative research methods and mobile communication, with Comm 6830 being one of her favorite classes to instruct.
Her research program demonstrates sustained engagement with evolving communication technologies while maintaining methodological rigor through qualitative approaches. Recent work increasingly addresses equity issues in technology access and design, particularly regarding rural communities and racial representation in digital spaces.
