Lee Humphreys Bio

 

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      I grew up on a dairy farm in a town called New Hartford in upstate New York (real upstate, not Westchester!). I spent four wonderful years at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY where I worked my butt off and learned a heck of a lot. For a while I thought I wanted to be a journalist, so I worked in radio and broadcast throughout college. Finally my senior year under the tutelage of Dr. Geri Gay and Dr. Cliff Scherer, I began studying how people think about and use new media.  I wrote a senior honors thesis about how people perceive digital photography, got my diploma, and the farm girl headed to the Big Apple.

    I thought I wanted to go into TV still, but then the dotcom wave came my way. I met Mark Hurst and Phil Terry of Creative Good. I was employee #8 at this internet strategy consulting firm. I worked with some smart people and learned about consulting, usability, business strategy, marketing, and how to run a start-up. I had two great years here, but in the end I knew I needed to go back to school.

    So now I'm at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. I completed my Masters in May, 2003 under Dr. Carolyn Marvin and Dr. Joseph Cappella. I conducted a field study on cellphones in public spaces. I finished my coursework and passed my comprehensive exams in 2004. In August 2005 I married the love of my life and partner in everything, Jeff Niederdeppe.

      Building off of my MA thesis, I conducted my dissertation research on mobile social interaction. I studied how people use three mobile social software applications and focused on how social networking and co-location technologies influence interactions. Thanks to the Project for Global Communication, I was able to conduct some of my fieldwork in Singapore and Jakarta, Indonesia (which was fascinating!). I have also collected data here in the States, primarily in New York City and Philadelphia. I successfully defended my dissertation on June 14th, 2007.

      I received a small grant from the Urban Communication Foundation to help me finish up my dissertation and to conduct research on a fourth mobile social software application, which I currently working on. This fall, I am also teaching interpersonal communication at the University of Wisconsin.

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