Dr. Mahony earned her PhD in cognitive sciences from the University of California, Irvine in 1993. Her research focus is humor studies, and she steadily campaigns to get humor studies (more accurately, humor and laughter studies) recognized as a legitimate subfield of psychology. She is personally interested in attitudes and beliefs about laughter and is writing ("as fast as working at a teaching-focus school permits") a book that includes that topic. Dr. Mahony and former Psi Chi Western Vice-President Louis Lippman are presently co-guest editors of a special topic issue on humor and laughter for the Journal of General Psychology.