Erin Friess Ph.D.

EDUCATION
PhD, Rhetoric, Carnegie Mellon University

MA, Professional Writing, Carnegie Mellon University

BA, English and History, Trinity University

 
BIOGRAPHY
Erin Friess is a professor of Professional and Technical Communication and the current Director of Graduate Studies for the department. She received her PhD in Rhetoric and her MA in Professional Writing from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research explores Scrum and agile project management, usability/user centered design, and the technical communication discipline. Her research has earned the Frank R. Smith Award for Outstanding Article in Technical Communication, the Rudolph J. Joenk Award for Outstanding Article in IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and the Best of CHI Award.

 
OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
She enjoys crocheting, not cooking, and watching her daughter play softball.

 
TEACHING INTERESTS
Usability/UX, Design, Technical Communication, Project Management

 
COURSES COMMONLY TAUGHT
TECM 4180, Advanced Technical Communication
TECM 5280: Designing Technical Documents
TECM 5750: Measuring Usability and User Experience for Professional and Technical Communication
Project Management
 
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Scrum/Agile, Usability/User-Centered Design, Tech Comm Discipline

 
NOTEWORTHY PUBLICATIONS
R. Boettger and E. Friess (2020). "Content and Authorship Patterns in Technical Communication Journals (1997-2017): A Quantitative Content Analysis." Technical Communication, vol 67, no. 3, pp. 4-24. Recipient of the 2021 Frank R. Smith Award for Outstanding Article in Technical Communication.
E. Friess (2015). "Personas in heuristic evaluation: An exploratory study." IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, vol. 58, no. 2, pp. 176-191. Recipient of the 2016 Rudolph J. Joenk Award for Outstanding Article in IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.
E. Friess. (2012). "Personas and decision making in the design process: An ethnographic case study." ACM CHI '12. Archival Research Papers on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1209-1218. Winner of Best of CHI award, which is given to the top 1% of the 1500 papers submitted to CHI each year