Hi, folks. I research and teach technical communication, digital writing, and public science rhetoric. From time to time, I make things.
At present, much of my research is historical: I explore the use of popular science spectacles in eighteenth-century Great Britain—such as hot-air balloon ascensions or solar microscope projections—to integrate novel concepts and technologies into public life. I specifically examine the ways that communities perform public science spectacles and how such displays contribute to debates about appropriate meanings, uses, and boundaries for public science. This scholarship has been published in academic journals—Rhetoric Society Quarterly and Technical Communication Quarterly—and is the basis of my monograph project, The Utility of Wonder: Spectacle, Gender, and Public Science Rhetoric in Eighteenth-Century Great Britain.
In addition to my historical research, recent work focuses on contemporary public science education and embodied, situated forms of public science participation, particularly in spaces like science museums, makerspaces, and continuing education computer programming classes.