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RESEARCH
Writing in Engineering and Knowledge Transfer
My background in engineering communication stems back to my graduate work at New Mexico State University (NMSU). While there I worked extensively with the College of Engineering to incorporate communication into the curriculum and help implement and assess various communication initiatives. In 2000 I served as a Writing Consultant for NMSU’s ABET Accreditation Team. I also served as the Technical Communication Coordinator between the Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and English departments as they initiated an interdisciplinary design clinic pairing engineering and Technical Communication students on client-based projects.
My experiences working within the College of Engineering at NMSU also helped to shape my dissertation research on knowledge transfer. As I worked with faculty from different engineering departments to address ABET-required communication goals, the question of how well prepared students were to perform engineering writing and speaking tasks in their engineering courses continued to be asked. That question was the key motivator behind my mixed methods dissertation study, the results of which I published in a 2004 IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication article, a publication that is often cited as a key study in knowledge transfer literature concerning engineering. Another publication, a 2003 co-authored article in the Journal of Engineering Education synthesizes findings from my research of existing models of integrating communication within engineering curricula. Since coming to New Mexico Tech in 2003, I have built upon my engineering communication and knowledge transfer research experiences and made a focused effort to reach out to engineering departments and engage in research projects and communication-related support of teaching and ABET reaccreditation. Initial collaborations with Electrical Engineering (from 2004-2006) as a reviewer for junior and senior design clinics yielded several successful outcomes including an Effective University Instruction Research grant awarded by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Eastern New Mexico University for research of knowledge transfer of communication skills, as well as a 2006 article in the Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research and presentation and published conference proceedings for the SUN International Conference on Teaching and Learning. In 2006 I began developing ties to the Mechanical Engineering department, a collaboration that resulted in the joint appointment position I currently hold. Through the joint appointment, I have the unique opportunity to apply strategies to increase knowledge transfer of students rhetorical strategies from communication-based classes to communication tasks within engineering courses. I am applying the strategies that my own prior research (as well as the prior research of other knowledge transfer scholars) has informed, and these strategies (as well as more specific details about my joint appointment position) are presented in my 2012 Composition Forum article as well as a chapter in Intellectual Traces, an edited collection forthcoming (currently in press) from Baywood. The potential this endeavor yields for informing future research projects is tremendous.
Technical Communication Pedagogy
As Director of New Mexico Tech’s Technical Communication Bachelor of Science degree from 2004-May 2012, I played an integral role in shaping and evaluating our curriculum and keeping abreast of the latest technological trends and considering their implications in the classroom. My collaborative research with former colleague Dr. Rick Mott on single source technologies and their implementation within undergraduate technical communication curricula resulted in two Technical Communication articles published in 2007. In addition I have responded to the technical communication disciplines calls for more emphasis on undergraduate research by publishing articles that detail and highlight the value of our programs unique two-semester senior thesis requirement. In collaboration with a former senior thesis student and a former member of the Technical Communication programs advisory board, I published a 2009 Journal of Technical Writing and Communication article that was later nominated for a National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) award. This past Spring another former thesis student and I published an article detailing the senior thesis requirement from both a student and faculty perspective in Perspectives on Undergraduate Research and Mentoring. Another unique facet of our program, the fact that we house an electronic peer-reviewed journal and involve our students in both production of and publication within that journal is highlighted in articles my colleague Dr. Julianne Newmark and I have published in Technical Communication and the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication as well as a chapter in Program Profiles, a forthcoming edited collection with Utah State University Press.
Organizational Communication In addition to my knowledge transfer research studies, I have also conducted research in organizational communication. Based on my prior experience serving as a Communication Consultant for McCulley/Cuppan LLC, a firm handling communication for clients in the pharmaceutical industry, I served as lead author on a 2004 American Medical Writers Association article arguing for expanding roles of medical writers in pharmaceutical organizations. Then, in 2005 I began collaborating with Dr. Lorelei Ortiz, from St. Edwards University, to conduct studies of organizational communication within a major U.S airline. These studies, which examined the communication strategies employed as this airline experienced both a unionization bid and a corporate merger, yielded a unique opportunity to understand the role of language and persuasion in managing organizational change. We have shared our findings through multiple publications (articles in Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and Journal of Communication Management) and at national conference presentations.