Welcome! I am an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Science, Health, and Technology Communication at the University of Waterloo, and the Director and Principal investigator of the Demos Labs, located within the Faculty of Arts. I'm also the inaugural Co-Director, with Donna Strickland, for the University of Waterloo's Trust in Research Undertaken in Science and Technology (TRuST) network.
The TRuST network is a transdisciplinary project investigating a range of questions around the concept of trust in science and technology both within scientific and technical research spheres as well as in public communication, sharing, and engagement with science and technology.
The CFI-funded Demos Labs provides a hub for research on the communication of complex information in science, health, and technology. Increasingly, these domain's once-specialist communications are central to our democratic conversations. How can we better faciliate conversations on technical subjects that focus on issues and values that shape our Societal Futures?
In addition to my duties at the University of Waterloo, I am a General Co-Editor, with Carolyn R. Miller, at Genre Across Borders. Further, I served as a Member of the Board of Directors for the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine (ARSTM) from 2019-2021 and as President of ARSTM from 2018-2019.
My research focuses on how communication practices shape the processes of science and also how diverse audiences engage with scientific and technical subjects through various communication strategies and modalities. I am the author of On Expertise: Cultivating Character, Goodwill, and Practical Wisdom (Penn State University Press, 2022; a 2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title), Science Communication Online: Engaging Experts and Publics on the Internet (The Ohio State University Press, 2019), and co-editor, with Carolyn R. Miller, of Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (Palgrave, 2017).
My work has been funded by the Canada Research Chair program, the Ontario Early Researcher Award (ERA) program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Bob Harding and Lois Claxton Humanities and Social Sciences Endowment Fund, and through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), among others. My work has also been acknowledged through several awards. In 2024, I won an Arts Award for Excellence in Research; in 2020, I was awarded the Fellows’ Early Career Award from the Rhetoric Society of America; in 2018, I won the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program at North Carolina State University; and in 2017, 2020, and 2023, I won an Outstanding Performance Award from the University of Waterloo, which are given for outstanding contributions in teaching and scholarship.
I live in the Waterloo Region with my husband, collaborator, and colleague, Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher, where we enjoy "a house full of books, and a garden of flowers" (Lang, Ballade Of True Wisdom).
