Our graduate faculty, comprised of practitioners and scholars from fields including rhetoric and composition, professional communication, digital media, feminist studies and science studies, provide personal attention and mentorship of students enrolled in the program. Faculty research interests include:

Jennifer Almjeld, Director of Graduate Studies, studies and teaches classes in the areas of feminist rhetoric, computers and writing, and online identity. Her most recent scholarship includes a study of the rhetorical practices of online dating, embodiment in digital research and girl video gamers.
Angela Crow divides her time between mobility and digital literacy studies, risk assessment and health concerns, and work with writing program administration. Her interests also include big data, surveillance, and assessment concerns, and social networking and identity constructions.

Lori Beth De Hertogh researches intersections between feminism, rhetorics of health and medicine, and technology. Her current work examines how online communities influence women’s healthcare choices and experiences regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. To learn more about Lori Beth's scholarly activities, visit her website at www.loribethdehertogh.com.

Susan Ghiaciuc teaches courses in, and centers her research on, the topics of disability studies, ethics, and non-dominant discourses.

Michael Klein performs research in the relationship between popular culture and science and technology, narrative in medicine, rhetorics of health and medicine, and archives and cultural memory.

Scott Lunsford performs research in areas that include the intersections of rhetoric and mobility, material rhetorics, genre studies, multimodality, and digital scholarship.
Seán McCarthy teaches classes and conducts research at the intersections amongst writing studies, digital media studies and civic engagement in theory and practice.

Laura Miller is the Executive Director of the Learning Centers, where she investigates tutoring efficacy and learning outcomes assessment. She is also interested in students' dispositions and habits of mind, and she conducts research on the impact of writers' mindsets on their writing processes and performance.

Cathryn Molloy is currently researching rhetorics of health and medicine; rhetorics of the behavioral health sciences; rhetorics of the everyday; feminist rhetorics; and linguistic diversity.

Alex Parrish’s research and teaching interests include: animal rhetorics, environmental writing, rhetorics of science and technology, histories of rhetoric, critical animal studies, cross-cultural communication, and biosemiotics. He is currently finishing his second monograph, A Hoot in the Light: Illuminating the Sensory Modes of Animal Rhetorics, which is under contract with the University of Chicago Press.

Elizabeth Pass performs a majority of her research is in hypertext theory and its application, social media, web design, digital storytelling, and the usability and accessibility of these realms. She is currently working on projects that center around art & design, design & music, augmented reality, and usability testing accessibility and disability tools.

Michael Smith performs research in areas that include personal narrative, narrative journalism, ethnography, ethics in communication, place studies, attention management and attention economies, and graphic novels.

Ja'La Wourman researches at the intersections of race and culture in technical communication, with a specialization in digital and visual rhetoric. Currently, she is interested in ways small business owners and entrepreneurs can inform their audiences through culturally relevant design practices and content strategy on their digital platforms. Her most recent scholarship looks at the role of sound and multimedia for social change.

Traci Zimmerman conducts research on U.S. Intellectual Property Law, the understanding of “fair use,” and attitudes about open access. She is also interested in the “post-human” moment: what it means to be human in an increasingly networked and computer-mediated world particularly with regard to identity, empathy, accountability, memory and privacy.”