University Writing Program Faculty & Staff

• Brad Benz
  

  Since 2010, Brad Benz (he/him) has been a faculty member in Writing Program. He teaches FSEM, ASEM, Environmental Writing, and WRIT 1122/1133. His research focuses on green rhetoric, genre, writing across the curriculum, and mentoring. He lives in Denver with his daughter and their dog. 

  Benz Website: https://bpbenz.com   

  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, University of Washington 
  Office: AAC 380K 
  Phone: 303-871-7608 
  Email: bradley.benz@du.edu 
  Website: https://bpbenz.com 

• Russell Brakefield
  

  My approach to teaching is tied to a strong belief in writing as a social act, an opportunity for connection, community, and activism. The act of making, for many, is both revolutionary and sustaining. I am also a maker myself, of music, poetry, fiction, and essays. These are my passions, and these passions have given me a voice and provided me a community. In my courses, I ask students to write about their own passions and interests, to consider the role writing and research plays in their communities. I'm also passionate about the environment and about the relationship between environmentalism and social justice. I often invite students to develop writing and research projects that explore these relationships and offer potential modes of social action around causes of environmental collapse as well as environmental justice issues in their communities.  

  Teaching Assistant Professor 
  MFA, University of Michigan 
  Office: AAC 380Q 
  Phone: 303-871-7519 
  Email: russell.brakefield@du.edu

   

• Jennifer Campbell
  

  Jennifer Campbell has been a dedicated writing instructor and student advocate for 23 years. Since joining the DU Writing Program in 2006, her teaching, scholarship, and service have emphasized: curriculum and assessment; inclusive pedagogy; writing and well-being; multimodal composing; ePortfolios; technical and professional writing; developing and teaching in the Minor in Writing Practices; writing across the curriculum; writing program administration; faculty development and reviews; and longitudinal research. Campbell served as Assistant Director for First-Year Writing and co-authored Situating Research, a text for WRIT 1133. She has worked extensively at the University level and is Chair of the Academic Planning Committee, Co-chair of the General Education Revision Committee and Faculty Covid Accommodations Committee, and Mountain Campus Committee member. Campbell is also Vice President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. 

  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, Auburn University 
  Office: AAC 381B 
  Phone: 303-871-7698 
  Email: jennifer.campbell@du.edu

• Sheila Carter-Tod
  

  Executive Director of Writing and Professor of English 
  PhD, Virginia Tech 
  Office: 282 B Anderson Academic Commons 
  Phone: 303-871-7447 
  Email: Sheila.Carter-Tod@du.edu

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

• Libby Catchings
  

  For me, writing delivers both self-knowledge and "poetic world-making" (Warner 2002) - a techne that makes every classroom encounter an opportunity for re-imagining our potential as ethical rhetorical agents. I think teaching writing also requires a sense of play, and an awareness of the materiality of both our bodies and the writing process. For that reason, I incorporate a variety of visual, sonic, and kinaesthetic practices into class; more often than not, you'll find crayons and voice recordings a part of the classroom experience. That multimodal disposition also informs my community-engaged research in prisons, making use of rhetorical phronēsis as a methodological framework for both fieldwork and the curation of that research. 

  Teaching Associate Professor 
  PhD, University of California, Irvine 
  Office: AAC 380F 
  Phone: 303-871-7520 
  Email: Elizabeth.Catchings@du.edu

• April Chapman-Ludwig
  

  April Chapman-Ludwig has been teaching in the University Writing Program since 2007. During that time, she has taught writing courses centered around narrative rhetoric, women’s rhetorics, multimodal rhetorics, folklore, (auto)ethnographic studies, documentary, and transfer student experiences. Her current research and service center on support for transfer students. In that spirit, she was instrumental in piloting WRIT 1533, a course-specific for transfer students, and is a co-investigator on a six-year longitudinal study. She has also presented at regional and national conferences, including CCCC, NCTE, and RSA.   

  Teaching Associate Professor 
  MA, Illinois State University 
  Office: AAC 380R 
  Phone: 303-871-6620 
  Email: april.chapman-ludwig@du.edu

• Richard Colby
  

  Richard Colby is originally from sunny southern California, home of smog, movies, and Disneyland. His courses focus on writing in various nonfiction genres, including travel, food, and especially games. His primary research interest is the intersections between writing studies and computer, board, and card games. He has presented at numerous national conferences on writing and teaching. His most recent books include the co-edited collections The Ethics of Playing, Researching, and Teaching Games in the Writing Classroom and Rhetoric/Composition/Play through Video Games. Richard earned his PhD in Rhetoric & Writing at Bowling Green State University.

  Assistant Director of First Year Writing 
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, Bowling Green University 
  Office: AAC 380X 
  Phone: 303-871-7702 
  Email: richard.colby@du.edu 

• David Daniels
  

  In the classroom, I try to create a friendly, nurturing environment that puts student processes of discovery and invention at its center. My side gig is writing and editing poetry, and I bring that spirit of collaboration and creativity into the classroom. My focus is less on producing "better writing" during the quarter but on creating better writers longterm, writers who are prepared to confront whatever writing situations their academic, civic, and professional lives might bring them. 

  Teaching Professor 
  MFA, Indiana University 
  Office: AAC 380G 
  Phone: 303-871-7803 
  Email: david.j.daniels@du.edu

• Rob Gilmor
  

  My main classroom focus is teaching with archives; I collaborate with librarians across the disciplines to encourage students to explore the diverse and often challenging contexts of materials that resist easy interpretation. My classes address real audiences in the DU Community with exhibits of student work in public places on campus that invite students into important conversations about public discourse and knowledge. Outside the classroom, I’ve co-lead a multi-year research project and curriculum pilot program that’s helped to created new programming for transfer students at DU, and I coordinate the Community Writing Center at The Gathering Place. My scholarship explores rhetorical theory and how university archives can shape institutional identities.
   
  Teaching Associate Professor 
  PhD, University of Denver 
  Office: AAC 380N 
  Phone: 303-871-7725 
  Email: robert.gilmor@du.edu

• Sarah Hart Micke
  

  Concerned with relationships between language and responsibility, my teaching and scholarship focus on the intersections of rhetoric and ethics. My teaching emphasizes writing for and listening to diverse audiences, often in community-engaged contexts, such as service learning projects at local schools. My scholarship explores rhetorical and ethical theories and their applications in arenas ranging from lyric poetry to pedagogy to civic life. 
   
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, Texas A&M University 
  Office: AAC 380D 
  Phone: 303-871-7966 
  Email: Sarah.HartMicke@du.edu

• Doug Hesse
  

  I've taught writing for 40 years now, which signifies two things. One, obviously, is that I've been around awhile. But more important, I think is that writing is still endlessly fascinating, and teaching still endlessly important. One of my scholarly interests is creative nonfiction: memoir, personal essay, immersive journalism, profiles, travel writing and the like. I'm fascinated with the craft and possibilities of writing, the decisions available to writers, the consequences of those decisions: the aesthetics as well as the rhetoric. This fascination informs all my teaching. I'm a past President of NCTE; past Chair of CCCC; and past President of WPA and have held other leadership roles. 

  Affiliate Faculty, Former Executive Director of Writing and Professor of English 
  PhD, University of Iowa 
  Office: Sturm Hall 4th Floor 
  Phone: 303-871-2266 
  Email: dhesse@du.edu 

• Matthew Hill
  

  I've been at DU for 11 years now and attempt to engage students in multiple media and genres of writing. Be it through remix and podcasts, or essays and research projects, or my current experiments with analogue/board games, I allow students opportunities to learn how writing works in different contexts. Outside the classroom my current projects include community writing instruction and a research project about the history of sound and rhetorical violence. 
   
  Teaching Associate Professor 
  ABD, Michigan Technological University 
  Office: AAC 380J 
  Phone: 303-871-7808 
  Email: matthew.a.hill@du.edu

• Veronica House
  

  Dr. Veronica House founded the Conference on Community Writing in 2015 and launched the Coalition for Community Writing in 2018, currently serving as Founding CEO and Executive Director.  Veronica is also co-editor of the Community Literacy Journal.  

  Before joining the faculty at DU in 2021, Veronica was faculty in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Colorado Boulder for 15 years where she served as Associate Faculty Director for Service-Learning and Outreach and founder of CU’s Writing Initiative for Service and Engagement.   

  Veronica is the author of several books and articles on local food movements, community engaged work in higher education, and connections between language and power. She is recipient of Campus Compact's Engaged Scholar Award; University of Colorado's Women Who Make A Difference Award; and numerous teaching awards.   

  Teaching Associate Professor 
  PhD, University of Texas at Austin 
  Office: AAC 380T 
  Phone: 303-871-7573 
  Email: Veronica.House@du.edu

• Megan Kelly
  

  Megan J. Kelly is a teaching professor in the Writing Program and assistant director of the Writing Center at the University of Denver. Her work focuses on environmental communication, with a particular emphasis on the narrative and rhetorical strategies of student activists in the climate justice movement, and on training peer tutors of writing. She also facilitates writing groups and retreats for faculty. 
   
  Assistant Director of the Writing Center 
  Teaching Professor 
  ABD, University of Washington 
  Office: AAC 380E 
  Phone: 303-871-7507 
  Email: megan.j.kelly@du.edu

• Kamila Kinyon
  

  In my classes, I encourage students to draw on their diverse backgrounds and interests in shaping meaningful argumentative and personal writing. My teaching has focused on the rhetoric of journalism, oral history, and ethnography, which has also been a subject of my research and service. I am a member of the DU Ethnography Lab (DUEL) which supports students, faculty, and community partners in conducting socially engaged ethnographic work. My work with DUEL has led to several conferences and publications, including an article for The Annals of Anthropological Practice and a chapter for the 2020/21 IWAC proceedings. Other teaching and research interests include Slavic Studies, immigration, multilingual writing, and visual rhetoric. 

   
  Teaching Associate Professor 
  PhD, University of Chicago 
  Office: AAC 380W 
  Phone: 303-871-7831 
  Email: kamila.kinyon@du.edu 

• Calley Marotta
  

  Dr. Calley Marotta (she/her) is a former K-12 special education teacher and current Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of Denver. Her teaching and research focus on writing and linguistic justice. Her courses ask students to 1) question what good writing is and who gets to be a good writer 2) design writing interventions for more equitable futures. In her research, Dr. Marotta uses participatory and ethnographic methods and loves writing and researching with students. Her work has been supported by the Spencer Education Foundation and has been published in Research in the Teaching of English, College English, Inside Higher Education, and the Community Literacy Journal. She spends her weekends drawing and dancing with her daughter. 

   

  Teaching Assistant Professor 
  PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  Office: AAC 380R 
  Phone: 303-871-7484
  Email: Catherine.Marotta@du.edu

• Heather Martin
  

  Heather N. Martin, Ph.D. is a Teaching Professor in the University Writing Program and Faculty Director of the First-Year Seminar (FSEM) Program. She has been teaching at the University since 2002 and is a proud DU alumna (Ph.D., English, 2011). Dr. Martin’s research interests include writing across the curriculum, writing for wellbeing, and community-engaged teaching and learning. In addition to her role in Writing and FSEM, Dr. Martin leads faculty mentoring initiatives on campus and offers professional development workshops and coaching to faculty across the professional lifecycle.

   
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, University of Denver 
  Office: AAC 380B 
  Phone: 303-871-7837 
  Email: heather.martin@du.edu

• Logan Middleton
  

  Logan Middleton is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the University Writing Program. He earned his PhD in English with a concentration in writing studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2022. Logan’s research is located at the intersections of abolition and community literacies, where he seeks to identify and combat carceral logics of surveillance, obfuscation, and control in educational settings. In his teaching, Logan encourages students to experiment with multimodal meaning-making and also strives to center justice-oriented forms of community learning and praxis.

   

  Teaching Assistant Professor 
  PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Office: AAC 380A
  Phone: 303-871-7566
  Email: Logan.Middleton@du.edu

• Alfred Owusu-Ansah
  

  Alfred Owusu-Ansah, Ph.D., is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the University Writing Program. 

   

  Teaching Assistant Professor 
  PhD, Michigan Technological University
  Office: AAC 380X
  Phone: 303-871-7727
  Email: Alfred.Owusu-Ansah@du.edu

   

   

   

   

• Juli Parrish
  

  I've been reading the essays, stories, blog entries, response papers, final projects, newspaper columns, reviews, artist statements, research papers, unpublished journals, and other work that college students write for more than 20 years, and I'm not done yet. When I read student work, I read for possibility and potential, and that practice shapes my teaching. As the DU Writing Center Director, I particularly value conversations about writing: all writers need to talk about their work, and all students are writers. 
   
  Director of the Writing Center 
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, University of Pittsburgh 
  Office: AAC 282C 
  Phone: 303-871-7431 
  Email: juli.parrish@du.edu

• LP Picard
  

  In and out of the classroom, I strive to put student writing first. My open-ended assignments are designed to 1) allow students to develop and refine their writerly voices, and 2) encourage students to take ownership of their intellectual pursuits. I am also involved with many projects, both within the Writing Program and across the university, that showcase and celebrate the work of our undergraduate authors. I am a managing editor of WRIT Large, a journal of undergraduate writing and research, and the Director of DU IMPACT 2025's One Book, One DU program. 
   
  Teaching Professor 
  MFA, Emerson College 
  Office: AAC 380P 
  Phone: 303-871-7505 
  Email: lpicard@du.edu

• David Riche
  

  I have been teaching in the University Writing Program since 2016. During that time, I have taught writing courses centered around classical rhetorics, multimodal rhetorics, New Literacy Studies, game studies, creative nonfiction, and transfer student experiences. My ongoing research focuses on analog game studies, contemporary rhetorical theory, and rhetorical vulnerability; my scholarship has been published in Literacy in Composition Studies and republished in The Best of the Journals in Rhetoric and Composition. I have also presented at multiple regional and national conferences, including CCCC and RSA.  
   
  Teaching Associate Professor 
  PhD, Louisiana State University 
  Office: AAC 380Z 
  Phone: 303-871-3259 
  Email: David.Riche@du.edu

• Rebekah Shultz Colby
  

  Since becoming a member of the DU Writing Program in 2006, Rebekah Shultz Colby’s research and teaching has examined how digital media, especially games, deepens rhetoric, writing, research, and pedagogy. She co-edited two collections, The Ethics of Playing, Researching, and Teaching Games in the Writing Classroom and Rhetoric/Composition/Play through Video Games. She is writing a book exploring how teachers use games to teach writing nationally and has forthcoming articles in Computers and Composition and Technical Communication Quarterly adapted from two chapters. As chair of the CCCCs Council for Play and Game Studies, she organized C’s the Day. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric & Writing at Bowling Green State University.

  
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, Bowling Green University 
  Office: AAC 380Y 
  Phone: 303-871-7597 
  Email: rebekah.shultzcolby@du.edu 
  Online Portfolio

• Angela Sowa
  

  I enjoy helping students discover how to more effectively share their passions and perspectives through rhetoric. My classes often focus on genre theory and reflective practices as ways to promote transfer - I want students to use what the learn in my classes in contexts far beyond the bounds of their academic careers. My research interests include the relationship between gender and religious writing; social justice and literacy; and promoting writing transfer through self-assessment and reflective genres. 
   
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, Texas Christian University 
  Office: AAC 380C 
  Phone: 303-871-7704 
  Email: angela.sowa@du.edu

• Geoffrey Stacks
  

  I am interested in teaching a class that emphasizes critical thinking and analysis. I enjoy challenging students to think better and more carefully about the choices they make when writing. My own scholarly interests include postmodern and contemporary American literature. 
   
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, Purdue University 
  Office: AAC 380L 
  Phone: 303-871-7607 
  Email: gstacks@du.edu

• Jesse Stommel
  

  I've been teaching for over 20 years, and I'm also a documentary filmmaker, co-owner of a toy / game store, and dad to a rascal 5-year-old. I design courses that ask students to look closer. For me, the purpose of a writing course, a pedagogy course, a digital studies course, is to encourage students to engage more thoughtfully with their world. Writing is a practice and a process, thus the "-ing" on the end of the word. In my courses, we focus on the inventing, the doing, and the revising--not as much on the finishing, the being done. Writing is a tool, a medium we use to engage our subjects, however we also consider the nature of writing itself. I teach about games, maker-culture, film, horror, and queer rhetorics. I also teach courses focused on "writing about teaching" and "teaching about writing." 
   
  Teaching Assistant Professor 
  PhD, University of Colorado Boulder 
  Office: AAC 380H 
  Phone: 303-871-7705 
  Email: Jesse.Stommel@du.edu 
  Twitter: @Jessifer

• Kara Taczak
  

  Kara Taczak is a Teaching Professor and the current co-editor of Composition Studies. Her research centers on composition theory and pedagogy, specifically teaching for transfer and reflective practices. Taczak’s upcoming work will appear in Writing Spaces, International Journal of Work-Integrated (IJWIL), and Composition Forum. Outside of scholarly and teacherly pursuits, she enjoys Crossfit and yoga as well as binging (and re-binging) any of The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and hangin’ with her super high maintenance dogs, Tilly and Tally.
   
  Teaching Professor 
  PhD, Florida State University 
  Office: AAC 380S 
  Phone: 303-871-7536 
  Email: kara.taczak@du.edu

• John Tiedemann
  

  Writing allows us to think critically, to imagine, and to engage with world. In class, I encourage students to do all three of these things simultaneously. 
   
  Teaching Associate Professor 
  ABD, University of Wisconsin-Madison 
  Office: AAC 380U 
  Phone: 303-871-7609 
  Email: john.tiedemann@du.edu 

   

   

   

   

• Amanda Thompson

  Amanda joined the University Writing Program as Program Manager in March 2023 after working in the Daniels College of Business for over three years.  

   

  Program Manager 
  MA, University of Oklahoma
  Office: AAC 282
  Phone: 303-871-7448
  Email: Amanda.Thompson@du.edu

• Olivia Tracy
  

  Olivia R. Tracy, PhD, is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the University Writing Program. Her teaching and research explore rhetoric and gender in technical writing, especially recipes, cookbooks, and botanical and medical texts. She also advocates for access in writing centers and writing classrooms, particularly through embodied and spatial practices. Her work has appeared in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal and The Journal of Haitian Studies. Whether in the WRIT classroom or consultations, she seeks to help writers compose across diverse rhetorical situations and discover the practices that benefit their individual writing processes.  

   

  Teaching Assistant Professor 
  PhD, University of Denver 
  Office: AAC 380M
  Phone: 303-871-7950 
  Email: Olivia.Tracy@du.edu

• Nicole Turnipseed
  

  Nicole (Niki) Turnipseed joined the University Writing Program as a Teaching Assistant Professor in 2022  Broadly, Niki studies holistic literate development across disciplines, spaces, and lifeworlds. Her recent research includes work on a National Science Foundation funded transdisciplinary action research and mentoring project called Writing Across Engineering and Science (WAES) and a cross-institutional, ethnographic study of cross-disciplinary social justice programs in higher education. Her scholarship, teaching, and service are committed to cultivating open, equitable, and collaborative environments where community members are empowered to develop and express their individual and collective capacities as learners, teachers, and historical change agents.

   

  Teaching Assistant Professor 
  PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
  Office: AAC 380V 
  Phone: 303-871-7518
  Email: Nicole.Turnipseed@du.edu

Adjunct Faculty

Our adjunct faculty members also teach courses in the University Writing Program, but their primary assignments or responsibilities are outside the school.

• Tor Ehler

  PhD, University of Denver 
  Email: tehler@du.edu

• Nicole Parker

  My name is Nicole Parker, and I am a geek for all things rhetoric and writing! I take the role of writing teacher very seriously. After all, the invention of writing fundamentally altered how we think, allowing us to come up with (and pass around) abstract ideas. And writing makes it possible for those ideas to be transported across time and space, allowing scholars, scientists, and craftsmen to build upon the legacies of those that came before. Writing is a gatekeeper of power and privilege, and rhetorical awareness–understanding how we are being persuaded, and how we can persuade–has become a survival skill for the modern human. And more than anything, writing is personal; it allows us to be heard and known. Writing can facilitate understanding…or destroy it. I hope that my students walk away from my course with a better understanding of the nature of language and writing, more awareness of the writing situations, and, more than anything, greater confidence in their own voices and ability to navigate the written word.  
   
  MA, University of Tennessee Chattanooga 
  Email: nicole.parker@du.edu

• Jonathan W. Fowler

  MA, University of Wisconsin

  email: Jonathan.Fowler@du.edu

Emerita

• Carol Samson

  Teaching Associate Professor Emerita

  PhD English/Creative Writing, University of Denver