Profile for Alison Obright

Alison Obright Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Assistant Professor

English

Specialty area(s)

Professional & Technical Writing, UX and usability, accessible design, rhetoric of science and health, rhetoric of technology, writing technologies and AI tool

Brief biography

I'm a teacher, learner, and researcher who has always been excited by texts others might find a bit "boring" - like tax forms, company mission statements, and scientific reports. More recently, my attention has turned to where technical and professional communication show up in pseudoscience, fringe science, and other "weird" spaces (like paranormal investigation, health and wellness trends, and cryptid investigations), especially their online content. Because technical and professional writing is everywhere, I'm always excited by the opportunity for interdisciplinary exploration, especially with students in my courses pursuing majors across the university!

Other scholarly interests include: history/philosophy of science and technology, mycology, research design, and assessment

Current courses at UWL

ENG 310: Digital Content and User Experience Writing

ENG 335: Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing

Education

Ph.D. in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical communication, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Dissertation - "Haunting evidence: Technology, belief, and evidentiary practice in paranormal investigation"

M.A. in Rhetoric and scientific & technical communication, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Thesis - "Scientists of TikTok: A Genre Analysis of Multimodal Social Media"

B.S. in Biology and English, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Biology capstone - "Coevolution of Magnoporthe oryzae and Cultivated Rice Species" English capstone - "Writing Across the Curriculum: STEM Student Perspectives"

Career

Research and publishing

Deets, S., Baulch, C., Obright, A., & Card, D. (2024). Content analysis, construct validity, and artificial intelligence: Implications for technical and professional communication and graduate research preparation. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 38(3), 303–315.

Breuch, L.-A., Bolander, K., Obright, A., Ghimire, A., Deets, S., & Remcheck, J. (2025). Reconsidering Writing Pedagogy in the Era of ChatGPT: Results of a Usability Study of ChatGPT in Academic Writing. In N. Ranade & D. Eyman (Eds.) Composing With AI.

Obright, A. (2024). Haunting Evidence: Mapping activity systems in paranormal investigation communities. Proceedings of the 42nd ACM International Conference on Design of Communication, 280–281.