Author’s Biography: Melonie R. McMichael, Ph.D.

Having been in the field of technical communication since the early 1990s, Dr. McMichael has experience in both industry and academia. She worked as a technical communicator in Austin’s high-tech sector for over a decade, including multiple stints at AMD as well as contracting work and working as a lone writer for a small software company. She held multiple roles in the field that ranged from production through writing to print buying.

In 2010, Melonie earned her Ph.D. in Technical Communication and Rhetoric from Texas Tech University where she taught for five years. Since 2011, she has taught at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs in the Technical Communication and Information Design department. With over a decade’s worth of workplace experience and even more time teaching technical communication, she brings both scholarship and industry knowledge to the classroom.

Working in the field as a technical writer and desktop publisher in the 1990s, when technology was changing rapidly, Dr. McMichael was required to become technologically adaptable herself. After entering academia, she found that technology was seldom being taught in technical communication programs, primarily because of the changing nature of technology. Looking over her own experience, she created a course that addresses that issue and has successfully taught students technological adaptability for years.