Ria Gualano
Graduate Student, Department of Communication
Ria studies technology accessibility, disability representation, and institutional accommodations. As a member of the Virtual Embodiment Lab, the Cornell Social Media Lab, and the New Media & Society Working Group, she investigates these topics in educational and social contexts across digital and virtual platforms as well as in non-mediated domains. In her work, she is particularly interested in pairing traditional research methods with the creative arts. At her undergraduate institution, she led projects on the psychological effects of social media use and collaborated with teams on research related to memory, social relationships, and well-being.
Education
- B.A. (with Honors), Psychology, Johns Hopkins University
Interests
Accessible technology, invisible disabilities, avatar embodiment, virtual reality, disability representation, accommodations, social media, computer-mediated communication
Awards & Honors
- Dean’s Excellence Fellowship, Cornell University (2022)
- Graduate School Dean’s Scholar, Cornell University (2022)
- Honors in Psychology, JHU Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences (2022)
Contact Information
rjg322 [at] cornell.edu
- Gualano, R. J. & Bowen, J. (2022, February). Online, offline, or somewhere in between? A within-subjects examination of a domain-contingent self-concept. Poster presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s Annual Convention. San Francisco, CA.
- Gualano, R. J. & Bowen, J. (2021, October). Are our identities segmented in the digital age? The self-concept in online and offline domains. Poster presented at the Sixth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies. Toronto, Canada.
- Gualano, R. J. & Bowen, J. (2021, September). Personality and web 2.0: Social media’s longitudinal impact on the self-concept. Poster presented at the Seventh International User Conference of the German Family Panel pairfam. Bremen, Germany.
- Gualano, R. J. (2021, April). The online self-concept: Measuring the domain-contingent expression of identity and personality. Abstract presented as panelist on the Social, Digital and Mass Media Panel at the 39th Annual Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Social Research Conference. Shepherdstown, WV.
- Engineer, A., Gualano, R. J., Crocker, R. L., Smith, J. L., Maizes, V., Weil, A., & Sternberg, E. M. (2021). An integrative health framework for wellbeing in the built environment. Building and Environment, 205, 108253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.108253