Disseminar is nerds a research group of PhD candidates, early-career faculty, and senior faculty who engage in networked, horizontal mentoring through the various parts of academic life.
(Because we started this during the summer, this page is under construction–thank you for your patience!)
Jess Berchtold
Jess is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Purdue University and a 2025 AAUW Dissertation Fellow.
Research and teaching areas:
Selected publications:
Weblinks:
Adrianna Deptula
Adrianna (she/her) is a Lecturer at Case Western University.
Research and teaching areas: Technical and Professional Communication, Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, Patient Experience Design (PXD) rural healthcare communication, artificial intelligence, social justice pedagogy
Selected publications:
Deptula, A. (2025). One Size Does Not Fit All: How Clinical Pain Assessment Scales and Tools Mask Crip Narratives of Chronicity. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816251325229
Deptula, A., Hunter, P. T., & Johnson-Sheehan, R. (2024). Rhetorics of Authenticity: Ethics, Ethos, and Artificial Intelligence. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 39(1), 51-74. https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519241280639 (Original work published 2025)
Weblinks: adriannadeptula.com
Danielle Giles
Danielle is a fifth-year PhD Candidate at Purdue University.
Research and teaching areas: Public and Cultural rhetoric, Political rhetoric, Public Speaking, Digital rhetoric, and undergraduate mentorship.
Selected publications:
Rogers, K. S., Yerace, M., Giles, D., Deptula, A., Berchtold, J., Smith, A. W., Weech, S., & Dilger, B. (2025). Recursive, horizontal, distributed, networked: Iterating transdisciplinary models of mentorship in the humanities. In Symposium on Intergenerational Graduate Mentorship, Gaillet, L. L., Ridolfo, J., Micciche, L., & Young, M. (Eds.), Rhetoric Review, vol. 44, no. 3, 18-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2025.2526870
Nasiba Norova
Nasiba is an Assistant Professor at Metropolitan State University.
Research and teaching areas:
Selected publications:
Weblinks:
Kailyn Shartel Rogers
Kailyn (she/her) is an Assistant Professor and the First-Year Composition Coordinator at the University of Tennessee-Martin.
Research and teaching areas: basic writing, first-year composition, writing program administration, writing pedagogy, mentorship and student success, institutional ethnography
Selected publications:
Rogers, K. S., Yerace, M., Giles, D., Deptula, A., Berchtold, J., Smith, A. W., Weech, S., & Dilger, B. (2025). Recursive, horizontal, distributed, networked: Iterating transdisciplinary models of mentorship in the humanities. In Symposium on Intergenerational Graduate Mentorship, Gaillet, L. L., Ridolfo, J., Micciche, L., & Young, M. (Eds.), Rhetoric Review, vol. 44, no. 3, 18-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2025.2526870
Weaver, M. E., Hall, K. S., & Glaessgen, T. A. (2022). Challenging assumptions about basic writers and corequisites at four-year institutions. Journal of Basic Writing, 41(1-2), pp. 76–105. https://doi.org/10.37514/JBW-J.2022.41.1.04
Weblinks: kshartelhall.com & Google Scholar
Ghada Seifeddine
Ghada is a fifth-year PhD Candidate at Purdue.
Research and teaching areas:
Selected publications:
Weblinks: seifeddineghada.com
Allegra W. Smith
Allegra (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Technical Communication at Georgia Tech.
Research and teaching areas: technical and professional communication, design of communication, user experience (UX), accessibility and usability, digital rhetoric, feminist research methodologies, curriculum design, internships, online writing instruction, age studies
Selected publications: See CV or Google Scholar.
Weblinks: allegra-w-smith.com
Shelton Weech
Shelton (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of technical communication at Utah Valley University.
Research and teaching areas: Technical & science communication, social media, collaborative communication
Selected publications: Check out his webpage!
Weblinks: sheltonweech.com
Marisa Yerace
Marisa (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Composition, Rhetoric, and Technical Writing and the Writing Program Coordinator at Weber State University.
Research and teaching areas: undergraduate and graduate courses in composition, digital writing technologies, professional writing, and pedagogy. Her research focuses on agile writing program administration.
Selected publications:
Writing Elevated, an Open Educational Resource for Weber State University’s Composition program.
Yerace, M. (2023). Agile writing programs. In J. Borgman & C. McArdle, PARS in charge: Resources and strategies for online writing program leaders, pp. 86-99. WAC Clearinghouse.
Weblinks: myerace.com | Google Scholar link
Bradley Dilger
Bradley (he/his/Dilger) is a Professor and the Director of Writing at Purdue University.
Research and teaching areas: qualitative research methods, networked mentoring, and writing transfer.
Selected publications: see brief CV or Google Scholar.
Weblinks: dtext.org