People

Please note: For questions about add codes or courses, please contact the Writing Program Advisor, Audrey Youngblood (ayoungblood@hfa.ucsb.edu).

  • Associate Vice Chancellor of Teaching and Learning

Associate Vice Chancellor of Teaching and Learning; Professor of Writing Studies

  • Senior Continuing Lecturer

Katie Baillargeon teaches a range of academic writing courses, from lower-division Writing 1, 2, ACE, and 50, to upper-division 105s and 109s like Writing in the Humanities, Writing in the Social Sciences, and Rhetoric. She also teaches 107L—Legal Writing—in the professional writing series. Each summer, she runs UCSB's Dissertation Write-in for graduate students across the campus and she has recently expanded into faculty writing consultations and workshops. Her research interests are varied, and include graduate student writing, how dissertation boot camps aid student writers, food writing, and 17th-century French opera.

  • Lecturer - Retired
  • Lecturer - Retired

Norman Douglas ("Doug") Bradley teaches STEM-centered courses, including those within the undergraduate engineering sequence (Writing 1E, 2E, and 50E), Writing for Science and Technology (Writing 109ST), Writing for Health Professionals (Writing 109HP), and Writing and the Research Process (Writing 50) on the topic of urban legends, conspiracy theories, and hoaxes. He also teaches Scientific Literacy (Writing 159A) and Science Communication (Writing 259).

  • South Hall 1523
  • Lecturer

Eva Braunstein teaches Approaches to University Writing (Writing 1), Academic Writing (Writing 2), and Rhetoric and Writing (Writing 105R), among others. She completed her PhD in Religious Studies in 2021.

  • South Hall 4720
  • Program Coordinator of the College of Creative Studies' Writing and Literature major

Kara Mae Brown teaches Writing 2 and Writing for Public Discourse (105PD), as well as a number of writing courses in the College of Creative Studies. Her research interests include assessment, online writing instruction, and multimodal composition. She also writes and publishes short stories and essays.

  • Lecturer - Retired
  • Lecturer

Rebecca Chenoweth teaches Writing 1, 2, 50, 105SW, and 109HP. She is also a founding editor of Synthesis, the Writing Program's Upper-Division publication of excellent student work.

Ljiljana Coklin
  • Senior Continuing Lecturer

Ljiljana Coklin teaches a variety of writing classes: Writing 50 (Academic Research), 109F (Film), 107G (Global Studies), 107B (Business Writing), and 109HU (Humanities). Her teaching and research interests focus on issues of migrations, border crossings, gender and citizenship in a contemporary global society and culture. She is also interested in the role of communication in international conflicts and its potential in peace initiatives. She is an avid reader of contemporary fiction.

  • South Hall 1518
  • Senior Continuing Lecturer

Craig Cotich teaches Grammar and Stylistics, Professional Editing, Writing for the Teaching Professions, Business Writing, as well as a range of academic writing courses. Specializing in two areas within the UCSB Writing Program, he directs the Professional Editing track of the minor and chairs the ACE program.

  • Lecturer

Christene d’Anca teaches Writing 2, 105C, and 109HU. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature with an emphasis in Medieval Studies. Her interdisciplinary research interests include women and storytelling, alternate power structures, and female patronage of the funerary arts. Her articles have been published in the Journal of European StudiesEarly Middle EnglishThe Romanian American Journal for the HumanitiesRomanische ForschungenJournal of Animal Ethics, and EuropeNow, with chapters in various edited collections.

  • South Hall 1510
  • Continuing Lecturer

Chris Dean teaches Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing in Community (105CW), Rhetoric and Writing (105R), Multimedia Writing (105M), and Writing for the Teaching Professions (109ED).

  • Girvetz 1314
  • Senior Continuing Lecturer

Jim Donelan holds multiple appointments between the Writing Program, Department of English, and the College of Creative Studies - Writing & Literature Department, teaching a variety of composition and literary courses accross the curriculum at UCSB.

  • Lecturer - Retired

Auli Ek teaches Writing 2 (Academic Writing), Writing 50 (Writing and the Research Process), Business Writing (107B), Professional Writing for Global Careers (107G), and Legal Writing (107EP). Her teaching and research interests include Writing Studies, writing pedagogy, U.S. cultures, and social and criminal justice. Her publications include Race and Masculinity in Contemporary American Prison Narratives (Routledge, 2005).

  • South Hall 1510
  • Continuing Lecturer

Brian Ernst teaches Writing 1, 2, 105CD, 105R, 107B, 107WC, 109HU, and 157B. His research interests include rhetorical code studies and narrative design in interactive media. He is also an editor for Starting Lines, a contributor to the CCCC Wikipedia Initiative, a member of the Collaborative Writing Placement Program, a mentor in the Raab Writing Fellows Program, junior Co-Director of the Professional Writing Minor Business Communication Track, and Faculty Liaison with the SASC Undergraduate Advisor. Further, he recently joined the Writing Spaces team as an Associate Editor for the Activities & Assignments Archive in Fall 2023. Dr. Ernst completed his Ph.D. in Modern European History at the end of 2014.

  • South Hall 1401
  • Continuing Lecturer

Feminist rhetoric, creative nonfiction, digital media and rhetoric

picture of Dan Frank, he is wearing sunglasses on his head and a backpack with landscape in background
  • Continuing Lecturer

Daniel Frank teaches First Year Composition, multimedia, and technical writing. Dan’s research interests include AI Art and Writing technologies, game-based pedagogy, virtual text-spaces, passionate affinity spaces, and connected learning. Dan is continually interested in helping students find their own passion as they learn to create, play, and communicate research, argumentation, and writing, across genres, networks, and digital communities.

  • Senior Continuing Lecturer
Gina L. Genova, Esq. is the senior co-director of the Business Communication track in the Professional Writing Minor and teaches the winter capstone course on client communication (WRIT 157A) as well as the spring internship course (WRIT 150) and the writing minor elective, Advanced Writing for Public Speaking (WRIT 162). She also teaches Writing for Public Speaking (105PS), Business and Administrative Writing (107B), Legal Writing (107L) and two First Year Exploration seminars on Legal Practice (INT94 UA) and Law Enforcement (INT94 TF). She also loves working with her students and is the faculty advisor for Mock Trial, Moot Court, Pre-law Society, and its Undergraduate Law Journal.
  • Lecturer

Peter teaches Writing 2 and 105WE: Writing and Ethics. His teaching and research explores the politics of inequality and modern/postmodern literature. He is interested in the ways that political ideologies, cultural or institutional practices, and public policies underwrite or alleviate social and economic inequalities. In particular, he is interested in democratic theories and neoliberal forms of governance and subjectivity, as well as how they are represented in late 20th and 21st century film, literature, and journalism.

  • Girvetz 1314
  • Lecturer

Baron Haber is new to the UCSB Writing Program and teaches Writing 1 and Writing 2 this year. His research interests include global Anglophone literature, environmental writing and ecocriticism, and science communication for the public. His scholarship on the environmental gothic has appeared in darkmatter and in ARIEL (forthcoming).

  • Continuing Lecturer

Leslie Hammer teaches Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing for Cultural Rhetorics (105CR), Writing for Chicanx Studies (109CS), Writing for the Humanities (109HU), Writing for the Social Sciences (109SS), and the ACE sequence. She received her Ph.D. in Literature from UC San Diego. Her research interests include nineteenth-century US Literature, multiethnic US literature, Native Hawaiian texts, US women's writing, transnational literature, and autobiography studies.  She is the Chair of the Academic Communities of Excellence (ACE) Program and Writing 1 Committee.

  • Continuing Lecturer

Jeff Hanson teaches Writing for Public Speaking (105PS), Professional Writing for Global Careers (107G), and Business and Administrative Writing (107B), as well as graduate courses in the English for Multilingual Speakers Program / Linguistics.

  • Associate Director and Continuing Lecturer

Deborah Harris is Associate Director and Continuing Lecturer in the Writing Program, and teaches a wide variety of classes (lower-division, upper-division, and graduate levels) ranging from science writing to writing in the humanities. Her book, Media and the Rhetoric of Body Perfection: Cosmetic Surgery, Weight Loss, and Beauty in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2014) explores the transformation imperatives advertised by the media, especially in the West. Her research interests include medical rhetoric, body rhetoric, popular culture, and composition.  

  • Girvetz 1310
  • Continuing Lecturer

Sarah Hirsch teaches Writing 1, 2, 107J, 107M, 109HU, and 109V. She received her Ph.D. in English from UC Santa Barbara with an emphasis on American literature and maritime culture. Her current research interests are visual rhetoric and New Orleans, as she is working on the visual representation of the "X Code." The "X" was spray painted on the homes and buildings by Urban Search and Rescue teams in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Sarah's reserach focuses on the intepretation of these images and the reinterpretation and repurposing of them by New Orleans' residents. She is also working on visual, material and embodied rhetorics of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans. 

  • Assistant Teaching Professor

Victoria’s research and teaching are animated by her investments in building just, equitable, and communal frameworks for embodied life through the practice of writing. Her research interests center on cultural and feminist rhetorics with specific attention to gender, sexuality, reproductive justice, and trauma.

  • Continuing Lecturer

Peter Huk teaches a variety of writing classes, primarily the engineering writing sequence, Writing for Global Careers, Writing for Film, and Writing for the Humanities. His pedagogy and research interests include contemplative inquiry and reflection in the writing classroom and representation in documentary film.

  • Girvetz 1314
  • Senior Continuing Lecturer

Jennifer Johnson teaches Approaches to University Writing (Writing 1) and Academic Writing (Writing 2), as well as Rhetoric and Writing (105R), Writing for the Social Sciences (109SS), Writing for Accounting (107A), and Academic Writing: Theory and Practice (501). She holds a Ph.D. in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her current research interests include the training and preparation of composition teachers, genre theory, disciplinarity, and the relationship between composition and literary studies.

Photo of Dr. Paul M. Rogers, Associate Professor of Writing Studies
  • Associate Professor; Director of the Ph.D. Emphasis in Writing Studies

Paul M. Rogers is an Associate Professor of Writing Studies in the UCSB Writing Program and a proud alumni of UCSB's Gevirtz Graduate School of Education where he completed his PhD in 2008. He is the former Director of the Northern Virginia Writing Project, a co-founder and former chair of the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research, and the co-editor of eight collections, including “International Models of Changemaker Education” (2022), "Toward a Re-Emergence of James Moffett's Mindful, Spiritual, and Student-Centered Pedagogy" (2023), and “Writing as a Human Activity" (2023).  He is a recipient of the K. Patricia Cross Award for leadership in higher education and a co-recipient of the Janet Emig Award for research in English education. He teaches courses in academic and business writing, qualitative research methods, professional and technical communication, and social entrepreneurship. 

 

  • Continuing Lecturer

Robert Krut teaches Writing 1-2 (through the ACE Program), 105C, 107B, 109F, and works extensively with community outreach. In addition to his work in the Writing Program, he teaches creative writing and literature in the College of Creative Studies. He is the author of four books: Watch Me Trick Ghosts (Codhill/SUNY Press, 2021), The Now Dark Sky, Setting Us All on Fire (Codhill/SUNY Press, 2019), which received the Codhill Poetry Award, This is the Ocean (Bona Fide Books, 2013) recipient of the Melissa Gregory Lanitis Poetry Prize, and The Spider Sermons (BlazeVox Books, 2009). His poetry has also appeared in numerous literary journals, both in print and online.

Photo of Marjorie Kruvand, sitting at their desk wearing green sweater
  • Lecturer
Marjorie Kruvand teaches Writing for Public Relations (107P), Professional Writing for Global Careers (107G), Science Writing for the Public (105SW) and Journalism and News Writing (107J).
  • Senior Continuing Lecturer

Dr. Kryder  directs the Business Communication track of the Professional Writing Minor; those courses are Business Communication for Client Projects(Writ 157A),  Strategic Business Communication( Writ 157B), and Internships (Writ 150). She also teaches  Writing for Environmental Professions (Writ 107EP), Writing for Sustainability (Writ 105S), and Writing for Public Relations (Writ 107P). 

Her research interests are with students' successful transition from academia to the professional world, sustainability practices in business, and nature interpretation. 

  • Professor of Writing; Director of the Writing Program; Affiliate Faculty Member in Education

Karen Lunsford teaches Science Writing for the Public (105SW), Writing for the Health Professions (109HP), Writing for Science and Technology (109ST), Academic Research Writing (251), Teaching Technical Communication (252), the Proseminar for the Writing Studies Emphasis (502A/B), and Literacy in the Information Age (Education 202F).

  • South Hall 1521
  • Senior Continuing Lecturer

Patrick McHugh teaches Writing 50 (Work in the 21st Century), and a number of 100-level courses including Business Writing and Creative Nonfiction.

  • Research Professor - Retired
  • Lecturer - No longer with the UCSB WP

Paul Mena teaches Journalism and News Writing, Digital Journalism, Multiplatform Journalism, and Writing and Ethics. He received his Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Florida. His areas of research are journalism, misinformation, fact-checking, and credibility. His academic work has been published in Journalism, Social Media + Society, Journalism Practice, Policy & Internet, and Media and Communication. He worked as a professional journalist in Ecuador, reporting for BBC News Mundo, El Pais (Spain), and Ecuadorian media. As a Fulbright scholar, he obtained his master's degree in Mass Communications and Journalism Studies at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.

  • Girvetz 1320
  • Lecturer - Retired

Ilene Miele teaches advanced courses in professional writing like Writing for the Teaching Professions (109ED), Writing about Sustainability (105S), and Creative Nonfiction (105C). She also teaches Writing 1 and 2 for the ACE Program (Academic Communities of Excellence).

  • Girvetz 1311
  • Continuing Lecturer

Janet Mizrahi teaches Journalistic Writing (107J), Writing for Public Relations (107P), Web Content (107WC), Business and Administrative Writing (107B), and Health Professions (109HP), as well as a course in the Science Communication track of the Professional Writing Minor, Science Communication for the Public (159B). Ms. Mizrahi writes a professional blog and reads contemporary fiction to excess.

  • Girvetz 1315
  • Continuing Lecturer

Nomi Morris teaches Journalism and News Writing (107J), Magazine Writing for Publication (107M) and Advanced Beat Reporting (152A).  She serves as director of the Journalism track in UC Santa Barbara’s Professional Writing Minor.  Morris came to UCSB with a background in international journalism, as well as covering the arts and religion, and writing narrative nonfiction, essay, and commentary. Her work has been published in TIMENewsweekLos Angeles TimesLos Angeles Review of BooksAscent and other media outlets and literary journals. She has been a foreign correspondent in Europe and the Middle East and holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Nonfiction).

  • Lecturer - No longer with the UCSB WP

Dr. Robby Nadler is a Lecturer specializing in graduate writing instruction and also serves as the Academic, Professional, and Technical Graduate Writing Development Director for the Graduate Division. 

  • Lecturer
Dave Nikityn teaches Writing 2 and Writing for Environmental Professions (107EP). He holds a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi and an MFA from the University of Houston. His research interests include animal studies, environmentalism and ecocriticism, posthumanism, game studies, ethics and morality, as well as early American literature. His fiction has been published in Mississippi Review, Atticus Review, and Chicago Quarterly Review, and his scholarship is forthcoming with the James Fenimore Cooper Society.
  • Girvetz 1308
  • Continuing Lecturer

Ellen O'Connell Whittet is a lecturer who primarily teaches journalism, creative writing, writing for the humanities and arts, and community writing.  Her own writing has been published in The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, New York Magazine, The Paris Review, and elsewhere, and her book, What You Become in Flight, was published by Melville House in 2020. 

  • Retired Continuing Lecturer

Kathy Patterson (she, her, hers) teaches Approaches to University Writing, Academic Writing, Writing in Community, Writing for the Social Sciences, and Writing for the Humanities, and a first-year Discovery seminar focused on collective memory and what it means to be a Gaucho. She also teaches regularly in the ACE (Academic Communities for Excellence) program. Her research interests include blogging pedagogy, community writing, Disability Studies, and Memory Studies. 

  • Lecturer

Aili Pettersson Peeker teaches Writing 2 and Science Writing for the Public. She holds a PhD in English with an emphasis in Cognitive Science from UCSB. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and focus on bringing together cognitive neuroscience, literary studies, writing, and pedagogy. She is currently the Research Coordinator for the UCSB Trauma-Informed Pedagogy project.

  • Girvetz 1320
  • Assistant Teaching Professor

Dr. Michelle Petty’s interdisciplinary research in Education and Writing draws on Black feminism to investigate diversity issues in academia, creative writing, and in digital writing. She teaches writing courses in the Writing Program and in the Writing and Literature Major of the College of Creative Studies. 

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