Susan R. Fussell is an American academic and researcher specializing in human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-mediated communication (CMC), and social computing. She is a Professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University.
Biography and Career
Fussell earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. She subsequently held research and academic positions before joining the faculty at Cornell University. At Cornell, she is a Professor in the Department of Information Science and is also affiliated with the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures.Research
Fussell's research focuses on the social and psychological aspects of how people communicate using technology, particularly in collaborative and cross-cultural contexts. Her work aims to understand and improve communication processes in digitally mediated environments.Key areas of her research include:
- Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC): Investigating how different technological channels (e.g., email, instant messaging, video conferencing) affect communication effectiveness, social perception, and the formation of relationships in both professional and personal settings.
- Cross-Cultural Communication: Examining the challenges and strategies involved in communication across cultural boundaries when mediated by technology, and developing insights to foster understanding and reduce miscommunication in global teams.
- Social Computing and Collaboration: Studying the design and impact of social technologies on group collaboration, information sharing, and collective intelligence, with a focus on supporting distributed teams.
- Common Ground Theory: Applying and extending theories of common ground to analyze how shared knowledge and mutual understanding are established, maintained, or fail in technology-mediated interactions.
- Deception Detection: Earlier work also explored how cues available in various communication media influence the detection of deception.
Her research often draws on theories from social psychology, communication studies, and cognitive science, and employs a range of empirical methods, including experiments, surveys, and qualitative analyses of communication data.