McCaffery, Rhonda | Faculty

About Rhonda

Rhonda L. McCaffery is a Lecturer I in the Technical Communication Program in the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering. She teaches technical communication materials in a variety of courses for electrical engineering and computer science majors (TC300, TC496); naval architecture and marine engineering students (NA270, NA310); and the introductory freshman-level engineering course (E100), in which she leads discussions. Dr. McCaffery’s past research interests have tended toward pedagogy and audience-focused communication, and as such she strives to use assignments and activities that encourage students to mindfully consider their audience, context, and purpose as well as conventions of genre and culture when communicating in order to make their work as useful as possible. She is currently developing a version of the program’s TC300 course that involves a semester-long project in which students practice civic engagement by preparing educational, STEM-related workshop materials at low/no cost for K-12 students in addition to learning standard technical communication genres.

Education

Ph.D., Rhetoric & Professional Communication, Iowa State University, 2012
M.A., Teaching of Writing, Eastern Michigan University, 2004
B.S., Written Communication (concentration in Technical Writing), Eastern Michigan University, 2002

Associations

Member of Association for Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW), National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE)