Laura Kissel is a media artist who works in film and the electronic and digital arts. She is cofounder of the Orphan Film Symposium at the University of South Carolina, where she is an associate professor of media arts. Kissel's documentary work explores social and political issues surrounding landscape and land use, the representation of place and history, and the use of orphan films. She is currently in the preproduction stage of a documentary about media representations of disability, eugenics, and the struggle for disability civil rights. Kissel is a 1991 graduate of Ithaca College's Department of Cinema and Photography.