Emily K McKinley

Education

• MA in Communication, University of California, Davis
• BA in Communication, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Utah State University

About

Prior to the graduate program at UC Davis, Emily worked in consumer research and operations. Her previous roles include Director of Customer Experience for retailer Cotopaxi, Customer Research Manager for Maverik, Inc., and Director of Operations at retailer Gigi Pip. 

Research Focus

As a computational social scientist, Emily's research focuses on the impact of communication technologies and AI on human interaction and behavior, particularly within health and pro-social contexts. Her work also aims to develop and enhance computational methodologies in social science and communication research.

Selected Publications 

McKinley, E., Markowitz, D. M., Zhu, R., & Van Der Heide, B. (2025). Evaluating AI Use and its Psychological Correlates via Months of Web-Browsing Data,  Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. https://doi.org/10.1177/21522715251379987

Oh Y., Rasul M., McKinley E., Calabrese C. (2025) From Digital Traces to Public Vaccination Behaviors: Leveraging Large Language Models for Big Data Classification, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 8, 1602984. https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2025.1602984

Liao W., Lee Y., Xue H., McKinley E. (forthcoming) Relational Introspections with Artificial Intelligence: Asymmetries of Self and Machine Agency and Communion, Relational Schemas, and Trust, Human Communication Research.

Teaching

Teaching Assistant: 
Empirical Research Methods (CMN 102)
Introduction to the Mass Media (CMN 140)
Media Effects (CMN 141)
Health Communication (CMN 161)
Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CMN 147)
Social Media for Public Relations (CMN 132)
Political Communication (CMN 145) 
Personal Communication (CMN 120)
Public Speaking (CMN 001)
Associate Instructor: 
Public Speaking (CMN 001)

Associate Instructor
Public Speaking (CMN 001)