Professor Carney's PhD is in Social/Personality psychology with an expertise in forensics.  Her graduate work focused on the ways in which the US legal system assigns responsibility for crimes differently based on gender, race and class.  After graduation she worked with the CT Capital Defense Unit as a psychological consultant on death penalty cases.  She maintains a strong interest in death penalty mitigation.  Her current research examines cultural representations of crime and criminals in children's television.  Her lab analyses cartoon criminals from the 1940's to the present day, and compares the social representations of children's criminals with representations of crime in adult, prime-time, police dramas.  

Professor Carney graduated from Connecticut College with a BA, and from Wesleyan University with an MA.  After recieving her master's degree, she accepted a research associate position at the Yale School of Medicine, and spent three years running NHA funded research projects examining opiate addiction.  She then returned to graduate school, and earned her PhD at City University of New York, Graduate Center.  She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Connecticut College, and Wesleyan University.