Welcome! I am an associate professor in the Department of English Language & Literature and Canada Research Chair in Science, Health, and Technology Communication at the University of Waterloo, the Director and Principal Investigator of the Demos Labs, and the Inaugural Co-Director, with Donna Strickland, for the University of Waterloo's TRuST network. I am the author of On Expertise: Cultivating Character, Goodwill, and Practical Wisdom (Penn State UP, 2022), Science Communication Online (The Ohio State UP, 2019), and co-editor, with Carolyn R. Miller, of Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (Palgrave, 2017).
My research has been funded by the Canada Research Chair program, the Ontario Early Researcher Award program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, among others. My work has also been acknowledged through numerous 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 doctoral 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).
