Faculty
Associate Professor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
Kate is an information architect, UX program manager, UX/UI designer, audio engineer, and educator. She is director of The Cube, an experiential learning initiative that provides real-world large-scale project management, UX, editing, and client relations opportunities for students. She has extensive industry experience, including twenty years of project management experience and over a decade of experience in all facets of communications strategy.
Assistant Professor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
Christina Boyles is an Assistant Professor of Culturally-engaged Digital Humanities in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures. Her research explores the relationship between surveillance, social justice, and the environment. She is the co-founder of SurvDH, a community exploring the intersections between surveillance and the humanities. Her published work appears in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Bodies of Information: Feminist Debates in the Digital Humanities, American Quarterly, The Southern Literary Journal, The South Central Review, and Plath Profiles. Boyles received her Ph.D. from Baylor University.
Associate Dean of Research & Graduate Studies, College of Arts & Letters
Bill Hart-Davidson is a Professor in WRAC, a Senior Researcher at WIDE Research Center and Matrix, and is Associate Dean For Research & Graduate Education in the College of Arts & Letters. Bill is a co-inventor of Eli Review, a software service that supports peer learning. His research examines the use of technology in written communication, with a focus on the ways effective feedback can lead to better results in a variety of domains including learning and health care. He is a co-founder of the Experience Architecture program.
Assistant Professor of Experience Architecture
Sara Doan, Ph.D. (she/her) is an assistant professor of experience architecture in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures Department at Michigan State University. Her research examines how expertise is framed and enacted across different genres, such as instructor feedback on resumes and cover letters, misleading data visualizations about COVID-19, project management, audience co-creation in public service announcements, and the content strategy of Southeastern state health departments. Doan’s work on data visualizations, preventive health behaviors, and feedback in technical communication courses has appeared in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and Business and Professional Communication Quarterly.
Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Programs
Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
Kate is a learning experience designer, game designer, writer, editor, and educator. She is the director of the Professional and Public Writing major and Minor in Writing and teaches in both programs as well as Experience Architecture. Her research interests include community-engaged teaching and learning, representation in online and tabletop games, the history of rhetoric, and the rhetoric of history.
Associate Professor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
Natasha N. Jones is a technical communication scholar and co-author of the book Technical Communication after the Social Justice Turn: Building Coalitions for Action (winner of the 2021 CCCC Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication). Her research interests include social justice, narrative, and technical communication pedagogy. She holds herself especially accountable to Black women and femmes and systemically marginalized communities. She seeks to always center the narratives and experiences of those at the margins in her scholarship. Her work has been published in a number of journals including, Technical Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, and the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. She has received national recognition for her work, being awarded the CCCC Best Article in Technical and Scientific Communication (2020, 2018, and 2014) and the Nell Ann Pickett Award (2017). She currently serves as the Vice President for the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) and is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures.
Associate Professor of Graphic Design & Experience Architecture, Department of Art, Art History, & Design
Zach Kaiser is an experience designer, educator, and music producer. He earned his MFA in design from the Dynamic Media Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2013. Zach is also a co-founder of Skeptic, a Boston-based research and design collective whose work ranges from large-scale interactive installations to service design, and from brand identity design to mobile application design and development. The work of Skeptic has been featured at several design conferences, including UX Fest 2013 and Design Exchange Boston.
Academic Specialist, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
Jeff Kuure is an Academic Specialist in the department of Writing, Rhetoric and Cultures where he teaches undergraduate courses on visual rhetoric, web development, and computational thinking in the Experience Architecture program. Prior to earning his MFA in Digital Media and Sculpture from Washington State University, he worked as a web developer in Detroit and Arizona, in the IT department at Michigan Tech, and as a graphic designer in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections at WSU.
Director of Experience Architecture
Assistant Professor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
Casey McArdle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University. He teaches Experience Architecture and has several publications and conference presentations that focus on online interaction via academic, professional, and social spaces. His research interests examine experience architecture, learning experience design, online writing instruction, leadership, web development, user experience research, user experience design, and rhetorical theory.
Professor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures
Liza Potts is a Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University where she leads WIDE Research lab and is a co-founder of the Experience Architecture program. Her research interests include social user experience, content strategy, and digital culture, and Liza has published three books and over 80 publications on these topics. Her professional experience includes working for technology startups, Microsoft, and design consultancies. Liza earned her Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest technological university.
Director of Academic Technology, College of Arts & Letters
Scott Schopieray earned his Ph.D. in Learning, Technology and Culture from the MSU College of Education and is currently Director of Academic Technology at the College of Arts & Letters. His work is focused on technology enhanced teaching and Learning — particularly online/blended and experiential learning. Current projects are focused on location aware mobile learning environments, augemented reality and studying effects of virtual and physical spaces on learning.
Associate Professor of Graphic Design, Department of Art, Art History, and Design
Rebecca Tegtmeyer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Design at Michigan State University. She contributes to the Graphic Design and Experience Architecture programs. Through her active research, writing, making, and teaching agenda she investigates the role of a designer and the creative process through a variety of forms. Rebecca is co-author and co-editor of the title, Collaboration in Design Education, published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2020. Her recent creative works of analog data visualizations will be in the upcoming publication, Feminist Designer, published by MIT Press in 2023. She is a former member of the AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC) Steering Committee.
Affiliate Faculty
User Experience and Assessment Librarian, MSU Libraries
Joshua Ethan Sanchez is the Head of User Experience at MSU Libraries. He earned his MSI in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan’s School of Information. His work is focused on assessing and improving the user’s experience within the Libraries’ digital and physical spaces. He leads the Libraries’ Web/UX team, focusing on the design and development of the Libraries’ website. Prior to joining MSU, Joshua spent four years at the University of Michigan as a member of the Library Operations team in the Shapiro Undergraduate Library.