CUNY Academic Commons

• Ph.D., Psychology, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), 2003
• M.A., Psychology, Hunter College, CUNY, 1999
• B.A., Psychology and Women’s Studies, Douglass College, Rutgers University, 1993

BOOKS

Cumiskey, K. M. & Hjorth, L. (2017).  Haunted Hands: Mobile Media Practices and Loss. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

EDITED VOLUMES

Cumiskey, K. M. & Hjorth, L. (2013).  Mobile Media Practices, Presence and Politics: The Challenge of Being Seamlessly Mobile. London, UK: Routledge.

REFEREED ARTICLES

Cumiskey, K. M., & Humphreys, L. (2023). Social, seamless, just, and open: Advancing mobile communication research. New Media & Society, 25(4), 833–848. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231158642

Cumiskey, K.M. & Hjorth, L. (2019).”I wish they could have answered their phones”: Mobile communication in mass shootings. Death Studies, DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2018.1541940

Hjorth, L. & Cumiskey, K. M. (2018). Mobiles facing death: Affective witnessing and the intimate companionship of devices. Cultural Studies Review Special Issue: The Ethics of Troubled Images, 24(2), 166-180. https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v24i2.6079

Cumiskey, K. M. & Brewster, K. (2012). ‘Mobile Phones or Pepper Spray’: Mobile intimacy imagined as a weapon of self-defense for women.  Feminist Media Studies, 12(4), 590-599.  

Cumiskey, K. M. (2010). ‘Simply leaving my house would be even scarier’: How mobile phones affect women’s perception of safety and experiences of public places.  Media Asia, 37(4), 205-214. 

Cumiskey, K. M. (2007). Mobile fantasies on film: Gathering metaphoric evidence of mobile symbiosis and the mobile imaginary. Psychnology Journal, 5(1), 83-99.  Retrieved May 8, 2007, from www.psychnology.org.

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Hjorth, L. & Cumiskey K.M. (2021). The mobile witness. Mobile media affective witnessing during disasters. In Hoondert, M., Post, P., Klomp, M., Barnard, M. (Eds.). Handbook of Disaster Ritual. Leuven: Peeters. 621-634.

Cumiskey, K.M. (2020). Children, Death and Digital Media. In Green, L., Holloway, D., Stevenson, K., Leaver, T. & Haddon, L. (Eds.). The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children. New York: Routledge. 480-488.

Cumiskey, K.M. (2020). Death and the Mobile. In Ling, R., Fortunati, L., Goggin, G., Lim S. & Li, Y. (Eds).  The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Communication. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 200-214.

Hjorth, L. & Cumiskey, K. M. (2019). Selfie eulogies: The posthumous affect of the camera phone. In Kohn, T., Gibbs, M. Nansen, B. and van Ryn, L. Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured. London: Palgrave Macmillan,

Hjorth, L. & Cumiskey, K. M. (2018). Affective mobile spectres: Understanding the lives of mobile media images of the dead. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.). A Networked Self: Platforms, Stories, Connections. New York, NY: Routledge. 12 pages.

Brewster, K. & Cumiskey, K. M. (2017). Missing girls’ voices in residential facilities. In C. Datchi & J. Ancis (Eds.). Gender, Psychology and Justice: The Mental Health of Women and Girls in the Legal System. New York, NY: NYU Press. 151-176.

Cumiskey, K. M. & Ling, R. (2015). The social psychology of mobile technology.  In S. S. Sundar (Ed.).  The Handbook of Psychology of Communication Technology. UK:Wiley-Blackwell. 228 – 246.

Cumiskey, K. M. (2014). The use of mobile media and the struggle for women’s empowerment.  In G. Goggin & L. Hjorth (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media.  New York: Routledge. 365 – 374.

Cumiskey, K. M. (2011). Mobile symbiosis: A precursor to public risk-taking behavior?  In R. Ling & S. Campbell (Eds.) The Mobile Communication Research Series: Volume II, Mobile Communication: Bringing Us Together or Tearing Us Apart?  New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publications. 17-36.

Cumiskey, K. M. (2009). Sentidos ocultos: Comprendiendo el impacto psico-social del uso del teléfono móvil a través de la narración de historias (Hidden Meanings: Understanding the social-psychological impact of public mobile phone use through storytelling).  In J. M. Aguado & I. J. Martínez (Eds.). Sociedad Movil: Tecnologia, Identidad y Cultura (Mobile Society: Technology, Identity and Culture).  Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.

Cumiskey, K. M. (2008). “Do you want to have a beer over the phone?” Capturing metaphoric evidence of mobile symbiosis and the mobile imaginary on film.  In M. Hartmann, P. Rössler & J. Höflich (Eds.) After the Mobile Phone? Social Changes and the Development of Mobile Communication. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 17-34.

Cumiskey, K. M. (2005). “Surprisingly, nobody tried to caution her”:  Perceptions of intentionality and the role of social responsibility in the public use of mobile phones.  In Rich Ling and Ped Pedersen (Eds.), Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere.  Surrey, UK: Springer-Verlag, 225-236.

Cumiskey, K. M. (2005). “Can you hear me now?”: Paradoxes of techno-intimacy resulting from the use of mobile communication technology in public.  In Kristof Nyiri (Ed.). The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication: A Sense of Place.  Vienna: Passagen-Verlag, 91-98.

• PIT-UN Co-Designee
• Serving as co-designee, with Dr. Effie MacLachlan (Director of Grants and Research, CUNY Office of Research) on national network of 63 colleges and universities charged with growing the field of Public Interest Technology; co-led Governance Committee; Trained and produced initial Wikipedia entry: Public interest technology. Featured and wrote many pieces for PIT-UN Newsletter; Co-organized national convening of the network at CUNY in 2022. (2021 – present)
• Board Member – National Deep Inference Fabric, Northeastern University
• Serving on first board of a project from Northeastern University that is building a nationwide high-performance computing fabric, a novel open-source research software library and a nationwide training program aimed at unlocking critical research problems in every field impacted by large-scale AI. (2024 – present)
• AI Working Group – Center for Democracy and Technology
• Member of AI working group led by the Center for Democracy and Technology that is focused on assisting the federal government in meeting the goals of President Biden’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. (February 2024 – present)
• Lead author – RFI – New Directorate at NSF for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships
• Contributed to the RFI both as a member of a working group for the PIT-UN and led CUNY’s contribution with partners throughout CUNY in both academic and translational research sectors in the University. (August 2023)
• Invited scholar – University of Tokyo and Kansai University
• Invitation to collaborate with scholars at Kansai University and University of Tokyo to better understand our common goals related to developing technology in service to the public. Participate in activities of the Beyond AI project with scholars focused on “guarantee of rights for minorities in the AI age”. (September 2024 – October 2024)
• Editorial Board – IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society
• Invited to join editorial board. “IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society publishes research papers on the interactions among technology, science, and society; on the impact of such interactions on individuals and society; and on the ethical, professional and social responsibility in the practice of science, technology, engineering and mathematics”. (accepted June 7, 2024)

PIT-UN: CUNY Pipelines and Pop-Ups: Generating Pathways into Careers in Public Interest Technology. (2024 – 2026, Lead PI, with Effie MacLachlan (CUNY) and Noel Hidalgo and Jazzy Smith (BetaNYC))

NSF: HSI Implementation and Evaluation Project: Using Peer-Enhanced Blockchain-based Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement and Retention. (2023 – 2026, Co-I with Dan McCloskey and Patricia Brooks)

NYC Tech Talent Project, CUNY2X: PIT@CUNY: Building the Field of Public Interest Technology through Upskilling Data Sharing and Community Tech Apprenticeships (2023-2024, Co-I with Effie MacLachlan)

NVF/PIT-UN: Building the CUNY PIT Lab. (2021 – 2023, PI)

NVF/PIT-UN: PIT-UN Convening at CUNY 2022. (2021-2022, Co-I with Effie MacLachlan)

NVF/PIT-UN: Building Public Interest Technologists through Pre-college Support Networks and Community-based, Service-learning Opportunities (2019 – 2021, PI)

Conrad N. Hilton: Fostering Growth: The Gifts They Bring from Foster Care to Higher Education. (2016, Co-I with Michelle Fine)

Affective mobile media communication, Human/AI interaction, Technology, Death & Mass Casualty Events, Equity-centered Design Strategist. Building Access to the Tech Talent Pipeline. Queer Futurist. Racial Justice & Repair Ally. AI-VR-XR Spiritualist.