Audrey Grace Bennett is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Language, Literature, and Communication. She teaches courses in design theory, research and practice and conducts research on collaborative and participatory design as methods for cross-cultural communication.
Bennett is editor of "Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design" published by Princeton Architectural Press that chronicles historical and contemporary efforts of designers to broaden the scope of the profession of graphic design to include user research.
Her current research--funded by Rensselaer, the Society for Technical Communication, and the National Science Foundation--includes the development of a theory of interactive aesthetics (IA) that democratizes the design process and places designers in virtual collaboration with lay audiences. IA facilitates the participation of remote participants in various stages of the design process through the use of new or existing communication technologies.
Her papers are published in the Journal of Design Research, Visible Language, Design Issues, The Journal of Graphic Design and various international design research conference proceedings. More information about her research can be found via “BaoHouse”—a virtual design studio that she directs.
View Audrey Grace Bennett's CV.
Tamar Gordon is Associate Professor of Anthropology in LL&C. Her work focuses on the cultural analysis of contemporary religions and their intersections with local and global modernities; themed environments; Polynesian and American societies; Her graduate courses include Ethnography and Cultural Analysis. Her undergraduate courses include colonial and postcolonial representation; religion, culture and media; and the EMAC Senior Capstone Design class. She is the author of a book in press, Mormons and Modernity in Tonga, and the editor of a collection of articles on ethnic theme parks, also forthcoming, and the director of a documentary film on ethnic theme parks entitled "Global Villages: the Globalization of Ethnic Display."
Roger Grice is a clinical associate professor of technical communication and interface design. He is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and Assistant to the STC President for Membership. He is a senior member of IEEE and past president of IEEE’s Professional Communication Society; he currently serves on IEEE's Publication Services and Products Board. He has received STC’s Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication and IEEE Professional Communication Society’s Alfred N. Goldsmith Award for Contributions to Engineering Communication.Roger is retired from IBM, and now conducts HCI research as a member of the Rensselaer faculty, as well as teaching on-campus and distance-education courses on human-computer interaction, communication design for the World Wide Web, information usability, and technical communication.
