University of Minnesota
Department of Writing Studies
612-624-3445
writ@umn.edu


Department of Writing Studies home page.

Alumni

Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication

Our graduates include:

Name & Current Position Dissertation
Paul Anheier
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Dissertation: "Stasis, Change, and Pedagogic Struggle in the Teaching of Technical Writing: A Cultural Study of Houp and Pearsall's Reporting Technical Information."
Advisor: Bernadette Longo
2012
Smiljana Antonijevic
Assistant Professor
Roskilde University
Dissertation: “Rhetoric, Culture, and Avatars: A Microethnographic Analysis of Nonverbal Communication in Multiuser, 3D Virtual Environments”
Advisor: Laura J. Gurak
2008
Anthony Arrigo
Assistant Professor
UMass, Dartmouth
Dissertation: "Imaging the Dam:  The Visual Rhetoric of Hoover (Boulder) Dam in Popular and Public Print Media, 1920-1975"
Advisor: Richard Graff
2009
Kelly Ball-Stahl
Grant Writer
Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
Dissertation: “Environmental Values in American Popular-Culture Narratives”
Advisor: Daniel J. Philppon
2005
Robert Baron
Assistant Professor
Austin Peay State University
Dissertation: “Pressures On Play: Rhetoric, Virtual Environments, and The Design of Experience in Virtual World Computer Games”
Advisor: John Logie
2012
David Beard
Associate Professor
University of Minnesota-Duluth
Dissertation: “Douglas Walton, Informal Logic, and the Uses of the New Dialectic for the Rhetoric of Inquiry”
Advisor: Arthur E. Walzer
2002
Roopa Sukumaran Berzins
Associate Academic Advisor
University of Minnesota
Dissertation: "'Stagecoach Island': Persuasive Lessons in Consumption in the Virtual World"
Advisor: Bernadette Longo
2011
Grace Coggio
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-River Falls
Dissertation: "Agency, Socio-Cultural Context, and the Role of the Technical Communicator During IT Adoption: A Case Study in Innovation Diffusion Across Cultures"
Advisor: Bernadette Longo
2010
Lenna Constantinides
Copy Editor for electronic testing software
Dissertation: “A Pragmatics of Power Using Jurgen Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action”
Advisor: Alan G. Gross
2005
Ruth Cronje
Associate Professor
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Dissertation: “Communicative Rationality and the Future of Science”
Advisor: Alan G. Gross
2000
T. Kenny Fountain
Assistant Professor
Case Western Reserve
Dissertation: “'A Matter of Perception': Rhetoric, Embodiment, and Visual Practices of Anatomy Laboratory Education” Doctoral Dissertation Fellow
Advisor: Mary Lay Schuster
2008
Timothy Giles
Associate Professor
Georgia Southern
Dissertation: “The Role of Metaphor in the Technical Communication Classroom ”
Advisor: Victoria Mikelonis
2004
Cristina Hanganu-Bresch
Assistant Professor
University of the Sciences, Philadelphia
Dissertation: “Faces of Depression: A Study of Antidepressant Advertisements in the American and British Journals of Psychiatry, 1960-2004”
Advisor: Arthur E. Walzer
2008
Brent Heffron
Faculty
Century College
Dissertation: “The Psychology Novel: Polyphony in William James's Principles of Psychology”
Advisor: Arthur E. Walzer
2008
Brenda Hudson
Senior Medical Writer
Medtronic
Dissertation: "'Democratizing' Clinical Research? Efficiency and Inclusiveness in an Electronic Primary Care Research Network"
Advisor: Carol Berkenkotter
2010
Elizabeth Kalbfleisch
Instructor
Virginia Military Institute
Dissertation: "Beyond the Tradition: British Rhetoric and Modernity, 1756-1783"
Advisor: Robert L. Brown
2011
Constance Kampf
Associate Professor
Businesss & Social Sciences
Aarhus University, Denmark
Dissertation: “Kumeyaay Online: Dimensions of Rhetoric and Culture in the Kumeyaay Web Presence”
Advisor: Victoria Mikelonis
2005
Matthew Kaplan
Dissertation: " Greening the Gamescape: How Virtual Game Worlds Can Represent Real-World Environmental Values"
Advisor: Dan Philippon
2010
Krista Kennedy
Assistant Professor
Syracuse University
Dissertation: "Textual Curators and Writing Machines: Authorial Agency in Encyclopedias, Print to Digital"
Advisors: Laura Gurak & John Logie
2009
Dave Kmiec
Instructor
University of Delaware
Dissertation: "Displacement and equilibrium: A cultural history of engineering in America before its golden age"
Advisor: Bernadette Longo
2012
Amy Koerber
Associate Professor
Texas Tech University
Dissertation: “U.S. Breastfeeding Education and Promotion, 1978-99: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis”
Advisor: Mary Lay Schuster
2002
Kari Kruempel
Lockheed-Martin
Dissertation: “Distance Working: A Rhetorical Analysis of Engineering Email Collaboration”
Advisor: Laura J. Gurak
2004
Paula Lentz
Senior Lecturer
University of Wisconsin-Eau Clair
Dissertation: “Positioning and Identity in the Small-Story Narratives of RN-to- BSN Students in an Online BSN Management and Leadership Course”
Advisor: Carol Berkenkotter
2007
Gail Lippincott
Permanent Instructor
Central FLA
Dissertation: “Ellen Swallow Richards: Rhetorical Strategies of a Nineteenth-Century Technical Communicator”
Advisor: Mary Lay Schuster
1999
Olga Menagarishvili
Instructor, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellows
Georgia Institute of Technology
Dissertation: "Dictionaries of Science as Participants in Scientific Knowledge Economy"
Advisor: Bernadette Longo
2012
Mariana Mendez
Assistant Professor
St. John's University, New York
Dissertation: “Maintaining and Enhancing Political Power via the Mass Media: The Rhetoric of H.R. Chavez, President of Venezuela”
Advisor: Victoria Mikelonis
2006
Salma Monani
Assistant Professor
Gettysburg College
Dissertation: “Nature Films and the Challenge of Just Sustainability”
Advisor: Daniel J. Philippon
2008
Sara Newman
Associate Professor
Kent State University
Dissertation: “Aristotle's Metaphorical Theory and Practice: A Comprehensive View”
Advisor: Alan G. Gross
1998
Dave Norton
Principal
Stone Mantel
Dissertation: “The Strategic Technical Communicator: A Critical Action Inquiry of Information Architecture”
Advisor: Billie J. Wahlstrom
2001
Jennifer Novak
Lecturer
University of Denver
Disertation: “Rhetoric, Medicine, and the Impact of Technologies on Subjects and Statements”
Advisor: Mary Lay Schuster
2007
Amy Patrick Mossman
Assistant Professor
Western Illinois University
Dissertation: “Apocalyptic or Precautionary? Revisioning Texts in Environmental Literature” Doctoral Dissertation Fellow
Advisor: Daniel J. Philippon
2006
Gretchen (Haas) Perbix
Assistant Professor
Minnesota State University
Dissertation: “Subject to the System: The Rhetorical Constitution of Good Internet Citizenship in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Campaign
Advisor: Laura J. Gurak
2006
Joan Pougiales
ESL Teacher
Grow English
Dissertation: “Little Ethiopia : The Colonization of a Multicultural American Workplace”
Advisor: Robert L. Brown Jr.
2004
Amy Propen
Assistant Professor
York College, York, PA
Dissertation: “The Map, the Mill, and the Memorial: A Rhetorical Study of the Visual and Material”
Advisor: Mary Lay Schuster
2007
Sam Racine
Director of Global Client Experience
Unisys
Dissertation: “Changing (Inter) Faces: A Genre Analysis of Catalogues from Sears, Robuck to Amazon.com” Doctoral Dissertation Fellow
Advisor: Laura J. Gurak
2002
Clancy Ratliff
Assistant Professor
Director of First-Year Writing
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Dissertation: “'Where Are the Women?' Rhetoric and Gender in Weblog Discourse” Doctoral Dissertation Fellow
Advisor: Mary Lay Schuster
2006
Merry Rendahl
Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota-Duluth
Dissertation: "Moving First Year Writing Online: Applying Social Cognitive Theory to an Exploration of Student Study Habits and Interactions--Two Case Studies"
Advisor: Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Advisor
2010
Jessica Reyman
Associate Professor
Northern Illinois University
Dissertation: “Rhetoric, Law, and the Regulation of Intellectual Property on Peer-to-Peer Networks: The Case of MGM Studios v. Grokster”
Advisor: Laura J. Gurak
2006
Andreea Deciu Ritivoi
Associate Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Dissertation: “The Debate between Rene Descartes and Pierre de Fermat: A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis”
Advisor: Alan G. Gross
1997
Tori Sadler
Assistant Professor
Metro State University
Dissertation: “Rhetoric, Technology, and the Military: The Death of a 'Top Gun'”
Advisors: Carol Berkenkotter & Mary Lay Schuster
2003
Greg Schneider
Assistant Professor
Kettering University
Dissertation: "Science in the Science Museum: Representing Science for the Public"
Advisor: Arthur Walzer
2009
Chris Scruton
Director of Academic Technology for Faculty Education
University of Minnesota
Dissertation: "The Rhetorical Potential of Images in Popular Accounts of Historical Events"
Advisor: Billie Wahlstrom
2010
Kirk St. Amant
Professor
East Carolina University
Dissertation: “Culture, Conflict, and Cyberspace: A Case Study of EU-US Negotiations Over the EU Data Protection Directive and the US Safe Harbor Principles”
Advisor: Laura J. Gurak
2002
Matthew Segaard
Chief Academic Officer
Rasmussen College
Dissertation : Title Suppressed
Advisor: Earl McDowell
2004
Doreen Starke-Meyerring
Associate Professor
McGill University
Dissertation: “Re-Visioning Higher Education on the Internet: A Cross Cultural Rhetorical Study of Higher Education Policy in Germany and in the United States”
Advisors: Ann Hill Duin & Victoria Mikelonis
2003
Kimberly Thomas-Pollei
Lecturer
University of Minnesota
Dissertation: "Shaping a Discipline: Science and Medical Education Reform in Britain, 1770-1858"
Advisor: Richard Graff
2012
Maggie VanNorman
Sr. Organizational Learning Specialist
Park Nicollet Health Services
Dissertation: " Body Burden and Newborn Cord Blood: A Case Study in Material Rhetoric"
Advisor: Mary Schuster
2011
Erin Wais-Hennen
Assistant Professor
Lindsey Wilson College
Dissertation: "A Textual Analysis of the American Journal of Chinese Medicine:  From Spirituality to Science"
Advisors: Carol Berkenkotter & Art Walzer
2009
Brett Werner
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois Springfield
Dissertation: "Pragmatic Ecocriticism and Equipments for Living"
Advisor: Dan Philippon
2009
Matthew Williams
Faculty
Inver Hills Community College
Dissertation: “Bartleby Goes to College: A Pragmatist Critique of Writing in Schools”
Advisor: Tom Reynolds
2012
Aimee Whiteside
Assistant Professor
University of Tampa
Dissertation: “Exploring Social Presence in Communities of Practice within a Hybrid Learning Environment: A Longitudinal Examination of Two Case Studies within the School Technology Leadership Graduate-Level Certificate Program”
Advisor: Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch
2007
Wendy Winn
Assistant Professor
Appalachian State University
Dissertation: “Visualizing Science: A Semiotic Analysis of Visual Representations in Ornithology Journals, 1859 - 2003”
Advisor: Alan G. Gross
2006
Christopher Scott Wyatt
Adjunct Professor
Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University
Dissertation: "Online Pedagogy: Designing Writing Courses for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders"
Advisor: Laura Gurak
2010