I am an associate professor in Marquette University’s English Department in my hometown of Milwaukee, WI. I specialize in technical communication and the rhetoric of health and medicine, and I am a leading expert in first responder documentation practices.
My scholarship and teaching reflect my interdisciplinary education and work experience and my commitment to publishing scholarship for practitioners, researchers, and teachers.
I earned an honors B.A. in psychology and Italian studies minor (Marquette U.) and an M.A. in composition studies and English as a second language (U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). I completed my Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition with emphases on technical communication and the rhetoric of health and medicine (Purdue U.).
While I was in school, I worked as an academic tutor, as academic support staff for university athletics, and as a veterinary assistant. I also held a National Registry Emergency Medical Technician-Basic certification.
By working and studying in those spaces, I learned that my favorite part about them was the interaction among people: supporting students as they learned course content, teaching pet owners how to best care for their pets, learning how paramedics remembered and communicated vast amounts of information in a short period of time, and understanding how writing facilitated action in these contexts. These experiences led me to study and to teach writing and rhetoric.
I have coordinated and facilitated Writing Across the Curriculum initiatives with nursing faculty, paramedic students and educators, academic staff, and animal science students, and I have delivered workplace writing workshops for university faculty and staff.