Professor Ding at a public talk

I am Professor of English, Director of the MS in Technical Communication program, and Faculty Member with the Ph.D. program in Communication, Rhetoric, & Digital Media at North Carolina State University.

Research Areas in Professional and Technical Communication

My research focuses on the following areas:

Intercultural rhetorics. Risk rhetorics (Epidemics and AI). Digital rhetoric. Rhetoric of Health and Medicine. AI and Technical Communication. Ethics and Social Justice. Writing in the Disciplines. Technical Communication. Health Communication. Mentoring and Professionalization. Asian Studies. Program Administration.

My latest projects have been exploring the connections between artificial intelligence, writing/communication technologies, risk communication, and social justice.

International and National Service in Professional and Technical Communication

I am the Associate Editor of Rhetoric, Globalization, and Professional Communication and serve on the editorial boards of leading journals such as Technical Communication Quarterly, Written Communication, and Communication Design Quarterly. I serve as a foreign academic consultant on the  Academic Advisory Board of TC China and Co-Chair of Symposium on Communicating Complex Information. Meanwhile, I have been reviewing grant proposals and conference proposals and serving on the best article and best dissertation award committees for ATTW and CCCC. I also regularly review grants for Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council.

Research Awards in Technical Communication

My first book, Rhetoric of a Global Epidemic: Transcultural Communication about SARS, received National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) 2016 Best Book Award in Technical and Scientific Communication. In addition, four of my articles won the 2021 Best article award in the International Essay Contest hosted by tc-china.org,  First place in the 2017 International Essay Contest in Technical Communication hosted by TC Shanghai, the 2014 Nell Ann Pickett Award for Best Article in Technical Communication Quarterly, and the 2008 Editor’s Pick New Scholar Award from Written Communication.    

Courses Offered in Professional and Technical Communication

I regularly teach graduate seminars in professional communication theory, research methods, capstone design, workplace communication, intercultural technical communication, publication/project management, writing for publication, and medical writing/rhetoric.

Specialties

Technical communication, AI-augmented communication technologies, AI and workforce development, entrepreneurship, risk communication, intercultural communication, health communication, program development and assessment, outbreak communication, grant writing, medical rhetoric, business communication, workplace communication, ethnographic methods, social media and culture.