Associate Professor

I serve in the English Department's Rhetoric and Professional Communication section as a specialist in computer pedagogy and computer-mediated communication. I regularly teach courses in website design, print publications, and the critique of communication technologies.

My research focuses on web design and information architecture, online student interaction, the uses of voice recognition writing software, and the rhetoric of digital cinema. My work has appeared in such journals as Written Communication and Computers and Composition and generally seeks to identify key variables in the adoption and use of new communication technologies. Currently, I am researching a book tentatively entitled The Rhetoric of Energy Politics, which analyzes the political discourse on U.S. energy policy since World War II.

During the past five years, my service to the department and university has included helping design a new technical communication undergraduate program; serving on the graduate exams committee as it revamped the comprehensive exams process; and serving as portfolio director for ISUComm, a grass-roots curriculum development movement seeking to integrate written, oral, visual, and electronic communication across all four years of the undergraduate experience.