RHETORIC - Key Persons


Allie Cooperman

Job Titles:
  • Graduate Programs Coordinator

Allison Vincent

Job Titles:
  • Teaching Specialist

Amy Hoskins

Job Titles:
  • Student Office Assistant

Amy Lee

Job Titles:
  • Director of First - Year Writing
  • Director of First Year Writing / Interim Chair

Andrew Cohen

Job Titles:
  • Professor Emeritus

Angelo Volpe

Job Titles:
  • Senior Lecturer

Anne Fretheim

Job Titles:
  • Senior Lecturer

Anne Lazaraton

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor Emerita

Ariel Weygandt

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Atilla Hallsby

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor

Barbara Horvath

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies
  • Senior Teaching Specialist / Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies

Bill Fricke

Job Titles:
  • Executive Office & Administrative Specialist

Billie Wahlstrom

Job Titles:
  • Professor Emerita

Brigitte Mussack

Job Titles:
  • Coordinator, Advanced Writing
  • Senior Lecturer / Coordinator, Advanced Writing

Capper Nichols

Job Titles:
  • Senior Lecturer

Christina Haas

Job Titles:
  • Professor Emerita

Clayton Benjamin

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Cynthia Pope

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Daniel Card

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor

Daniel J. Philippon

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor

Danielle Hinrichs

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

David Rodriguez-Martinez

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer / Pillsbury

David Schuelke

Job Titles:
  • Professor Emeritus

Donald Ross

Job Titles:
  • Professor
  • Professor Emeritus
Donald Ross (Professor) (Ph.D., English, University of Michigan) has served as director of composition and co-chair of the Task Force on Writing. He is currently working on how to relate what we know about the writing process to the processes of reading and research.

Dr. Ann Hill Duin

Job Titles:
  • Professor of Writing Studies
Dr. Ann Hill Duin is Professor of Writing Studies and Graduate-Professional Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota where her research and teaching focus on the impact of emerging technologies on international and technical communication, digital literacy, and writing futures. In 2021 she received both the 2021 Ronald S. Blicq Award for Distinction in Technical Communication from the IEEE Professional Communication Society and the 2021 J. R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Society for Technical Communication. She's published in Computers and Composition, Communication Design Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, edited collections, the 2021 book Writing Futures: Collaborative, Algorithmic, Autonomous (Springer), and her upcoming book, Augmentation Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Technical Communication: Designing Ethical Futures (Routledge).

Dylan Reynolds

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Earl McDowell

Job Titles:
  • Professor Emeritus

Elise Toedt

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Elizabeth Hartman

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Emily Buehler O'Leary

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Ezra Hyland

Job Titles:
  • Teaching Specialist

Ian Power-Luetscher

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Jane Carlson


Jasmine Kar Tang

Job Titles:
  • Co - Director, Center for Writing / Co - Director, Minnesota Writing Project

Jax Kinniburgh

Job Titles:
  • Teaching Specialist

Jennifer Franko

Job Titles:
  • Department Administrator

Jeremy Rosselot-Merritt

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Jessa Wood

Job Titles:
  • Writing Program Administration, First - Year Writing Pedagogy, Writing across the Curriculum / Writing in the Disciplines, Program Assessment

Jessica Trad

Job Titles:
  • Teaching Specialist

Jim Gill

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Jim Hall

Job Titles:
  • Certificate Advisor
  • Teaching Specialist / MS / Certificate Program Advisor

John Logie

Job Titles:
  • Professor
John Logie is best known for "Peers, Pirates, and Persuasion," a book on the role of rhetoric in the debates over peer-to-peer technologies (e.g. Napster, Grokster). He writes on the Internet, visual rhetoric, remix cultures, copyright, and the conflicts that arise with changes in communicative technologies. His next project is titled "Writing in the Cloud" and examines the material and conceptual shifts we are experiencing as writing moves farther and farther away from the composer.

Joseph A. Konstan

Job Titles:
  • Professor

Joseph Moses

Job Titles:
  • Senior Lecturer
Joseph Moses, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer of writing studies at the University of Minnesota. His current research focuses on measuring the effectiveness of instructional designs for writing-to-learn in teams.

Katie Levin

Job Titles:
  • Co - Director, Center for Writing

Kimberley Strain

Job Titles:
  • Senior Lecturer
Kim Strain (Senior Lecturer) (M.A., TESOL, Southern IL University, Carbondale) is a multilingual writer specialists. She teaches first year, technical and professional, and graduate writing as well as consults in the Student Writing Center to students across the curriculum.

Kris Cory

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director of First - Year Writing

Laura Gurak

Job Titles:
  • Professor

Lee Fisher

Job Titles:
  • Director, Minnesota Writing Project

Lee-Ann Kastman

Job Titles:
  • Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies
  • Department Chair

Lillian Bridwell-Bowles

Job Titles:
  • Professor

Maggie Shea

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Marcy Bock Eastley

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Mark Anderson

Job Titles:
  • Senior Teaching Specialist

Mary Lay Schuster

Job Titles:
  • Professor
  • Professor Emerita
Mary Lay Schuster (Professor) (Ph.D., English, University of New Mexico) studies the intersection of the law, science, and rhetoric. In the past, she has focused on direct-entry midwives and their attempts to become licensed professionals. Her current project involves interviewing judges to determine how they weigh victim impact statements in sentencing hearings involving domestic violence/sexual assault cases. She is also interviewing advocates who work with victims to determine how they advise victims and observing judges' verbal and nonverbal responses during sentencing when a victim offers a statement. Dr. Schuster is a Faculty Fellow in the Law School and has served also as a Deputy Director in the Office for Conflict Resolution.

Matthew Kimlinger

Job Titles:
  • Senior Teaching Specialist

Matthew Tchepikova-Treon

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Maureen Aitken

Job Titles:
  • Senior Teaching Specialist

Megan Mills-Rittmann

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Michelle Herrin

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Michelle Lubbers


Molly Kessler

Job Titles:
  • Director of Graduate Studies ( Ph.D., MA, MS, Cert )
  • Director of Graduate Studies, ( Ph.D, MA, MS, and Certificate )

Molly Vasich

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director of First - Year Writing

Nick Kleese

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Nick Rosencrans

Job Titles:
  • Teaching Specialist

Nicole Montana

Job Titles:
  • Senior Lecturer

Patrick Bruch

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor

Rebecca Jurisz

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Richard Graff

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor
Dr. Graff is a past president of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR). At the University of Minnesota, he has held an Institute for Advanced Studies Faculty Fellowship and a McKnight Summer Research Fellowship, and has been a visiting senior associate member of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. Dr. Graff is an Associate Professor in the Department of Writing Studies and director of the interdisciplinary graduate minor in Literacy & Rhetorical Studies. He teaches courses and graduate seminars in Classical and Modern Rhetoric, Communication Theory, and Rhetorical Stylistics. He is a recipient of the College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences' (now CFANS) Distinguished Teaching Award.

Ronald W. Greene

Job Titles:
  • Professor

Sarah Chandler

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Sarah Selz

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Scott Reel

Job Titles:
  • Teaching Specialist

Stuart Deets


Tara Zahler

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer

Thomas Reynolds

Job Titles:
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies

Tim Gustafson

Job Titles:
  • Senior Lecturer / Interim Director - Center

Tom Scanlan

Job Titles:
  • Professor Emeritus

Tréza Rosado

Job Titles:
  • Specialist

Vanessa Gonzalez

Job Titles:
  • Lecturer