Biography
I am a Professor of Communication & Media at Clarkson University where I have taught courses on writing, rhetoric, media and culture, and filmmaking since 1988. For six years I served as Chair of the Communication & Media Department. I have published five books, including The Lost Archive of Juma Sultan and the Aboriginal Music Society (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), The Wired Neighborhood (Yale Univ Press, 2001), and Rhetoric, Innovation, Technology (MIT Press, 1992).
My documentary film, The Lost Archive of Juma Sultan (2006, https://vimeo.com/160784171) was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2015-16 my documentary film about a purported stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1840’s entitled The Trial of Horatio Hough (2015, https://vimeo.com/125483102) was screened at a variety of conferences and festivals including the 15th Annual Underground Railroad Public History Conference in Troy, NY.
My work has received a variety of awards including the 2002 Rigo Award for outstanding lifetime achievement in the field of Technical Communication from the Association of Computing Machine SIGDOC conference, a 2002 Public Radio News Directors Award for his radio interview with North Country Public Radio, and the 1992 Graham Award for outstanding research at Clarkson University.
My students have won awards for work done in my classes. In 2013 students in my journalism course were recognized by the National Broadcasting Society’s student organization for a video news feature they produced. In 2016 students in my advanced film course had their films chosen as official selections for a variety of regional, national, and international film festivals.
Education Background
Ph.D. - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
M.A. - University of Maine
B.S. - Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Courses Taught
- Mass Media and Society
- Digital Video Production
Research Interests
- Documentary Film
- Creative Non-Fiction Writing
- Social Implications of New Communication/Media Technologies, and Rhetoric
Awards
- Book Chapter included in award winning collection of scholarly essays: National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Awards for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication, Best Edited Collection, 2005: Central Works in Technical Communication, Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Fellow of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. Awarded in 2005.
- Rigo Award for “Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Technical Communication” from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Documentation (ACM SIGDOC), October 2002.
- Public Radio News Directors Award for my interview with Martha Foley of North Country Public Radio about my book The Grid and the Village, 2002.
- John W. Graham, Jr., Faculty Research Award, Clarkson University, 1992.
- Best Collection of Essays, 1989 National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Awards for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication.
- Best Collection of Essays, 1988 National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Awards for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication.
- Best Article Reporting Formal Research, 1987 NCTE Awards for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication.
Grants
- The Anna K. and Mary E. Cunningham Research Residencies in New York State History and Culture: New York State Library, Albany, NY. May 2014 – December 2014. To support work on the Franklin Hough Archive, $1000.00 plus access and materials.
- Co-Principle Investigator, 2006-07. “The Aboriginal Music Society Project: The Lost Tapes of Juma Sultan,” National Endowment for the Arts, with Johndan Johnson-Eilola, $10,000.
- Co-Principle Investigator, 2001-06. “Particle Transport, Deposition and Removal: Combined Research and Curriculum Development,” National Science Foundation; PI: Goodarz Ahmadi, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Clarkson, $315, 635.
Publications
- Reel History: The Lost Archive of Juma Sultan and the Aboriginal Music Society. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012. Selected pages from this book were exhibited in the show “ MAC650 Gallery in Middletown, CT, April 2011
- The Grid and the Village. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
- The Wired Neighborhood. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
- Rhetoric, Innovation, Technology: Case Studies of Technical Communication in Technology Transfers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
- Effective Documentation: What We Have Learned From Research. S. Doheny‑Farina, ed., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.