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Laura McCann

Lecturer, English and Biomedical Engineering

Bio

Dr. McCann is jointly appointed in the Department of English and Department of Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on the intersection of science and medical discourse with a particular focus on the rhetorical and communicative problems accompanying acute and chronic medical diagnoses and treatments. Her courses teach undergraduate and graduate students across engineering and humanities programs to engage rhetorically informed skill sets to communicate technical knowledge to expert, expert-adjacent, and non-expert audiences.

McCann studies how humans navigate the associated communicative challenges that accompany medical diagnoses and interventions. Receiving a diagnosis brings known technical decision making, on the part of the providers and the patients. However, what is often underappreciated are the interconnected communicative problems that accompany technical decisions. Her work therefore investigates how humans navigate these communicative challenges as well as socio-cultural constructs with a particular emphasis in communicative strategies enacted in mediated, peer-to-peer spaces like Reddit and Instagram.  

 2024 Recipient of the Edwina L. Sanders Award for Outstanding Work on The Rhetoric of Health Inequities

Education

• B.A., English Literature and Language, University of Michigan, 2007
• M.A., Rhetoric, ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV, 2018
• Ph.D., Rhetoric, ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV, 2023