rhetoric. science + political communication. digital media. online communities.
I like to refer to myself as an “accidental academic.” After meandering through an undergraduate degree in Psychology I pursued a MA in English so that I didn’t have to get a 9-5 job while I raised my children. The goal was originally to specialize in Literary Studies, but after a survey course in Rhetoric, I was hooked. . .it helped that I seemed to have a real knack for it too.
I am now a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo reading, researching, studying, and writing under the collaborative guidance of Professor Randy Harris and Professor Ashley Mehlenbacher, both of whom – in the words of Ron Burgundy – are “kind of a big deal.”
My work explores online science and political communication, especially in the context of social voting communities like Reddit. While my approach is primarily rhetorical, is also inherently multidisciplinary, drawing on methods and theories in computer science, communication and media studies, philosophy, and psychology.