Dissertations and Placements
Our PhD graduates go on to careers primarily at colleges or universities as faculty and hold prominent academic positions; others have chosen successful leadership careers in industry. We have a long-standing PhD program that boasts a strong record of academic and professional placement. In the last decade, we have placed graduates in a variety of positions around the globe. For information on what our graduates are doing currently, read our Alumni Stories.
Recent Graduates
2020
Kari Campeau
"The Rhetorical Making of an Illness: Medical Refusal, Trope, and Improvisation in a Somali Women's Health Center"
Advisors: Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch & Mary Schuster
Placement: Assistant Professor, University of Colorado - Denver (CO)
Trent Kays
"Authority in Digital Space: Exploring the Case of the Green Pea Galaxy"
Advisor: Laura Gurak
Placement: Assistant Professor, Augusta University (GA)
2019
Ryan Eichberger
"Imaging Environmental Belonging in a Wounded World: Toward a Visual Rhetoric for the Anthropocene"
Advisor: Daniel J. Philippon
Placement: Adjunct Assistant Professor, Saint Olaf College (MN)
Juliette Lapeyrouse-Cherry
“Composing the Gulf Coast: Narratives of Environmental Toxicity, Racial Injustice, and Carbon Energy Across Modalities”
Advisor: Daniel J. Philippon
Placement: Adjunct Academic Faculty, Saint Catherine University (MN)
Placement: Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University (TX)
2018
Sarah Puett
“Critical Community Literacy: Looking With Local Resistance”
Advisor: Thomas Reynolds
Placement: Assistant Professor, Regis University (CO)
Jarron Slater
“Style Unbounded: Embodied Formal Identification, Play, and Sublimity in Technical Communication”
Co-advisors: Richard Graff & John Logie
Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Valparaiso (IN)
2017
Stephen Brasher
"A Rhetoric of Divinity: The Nicene Creed as Disciplined Discourse"
Co-Advisors: Donald Ross & Melissa Sellew
Placement: Property Claims Professional, Travelers Insurance
Kira Dreher
"Plain Language Revision and Insider Audiences: A City Charter Case Study"
Advisor: Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch
Initial placement: Assistant Professor, Montclair State University (NJ)
Current position: Assistant Teaching Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar
Chris Lindgren
"Ways with Data: Understanding Coding as Writing"
Advisor: Christina Haas
Placement: Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech (VA)
Brigitte Mussack
"Voice in Composition Theory and Practice: The Epideictic Function of Metaphor in Radical Writing Pedagogies"
Advisor: Patrick Bruch
Placement: Lecturer, University of Minnesota (MN)
Rachel Tofteland-Trampe
"Developing Digital Literacies: Engaging Technical Communication at an Urban Community Technology Center"
Advisor: John Logie
Initial placement: Visiting Lecturer, Hamline University (MN)
Current position: Assistant Professor, Hamline University (MN)
Anne Wolfe
"Breaking out of the Ghetto: The Theory and Practice of Using Critical Embodied Writing to Build Inclusive Spaces of Identification and Alternative Notions of Progress in Writing Studies"
Advisor: Thomas Reynolds