Hannah Ringler

Bio

Hello! I am a professor in the Humanities department at Illinois Tech, where I also direct the Communication Across the Curriculum program.

My primary research interests are two-fold: 

1) Hermeneutics in computational textual analysis. My educational background is in rhetoric, and I ultimately aim to bring the interpretive expertise of the humanities to the computational expertise of computer science to make better sense of complicated language models. In short, I am fascinated by what technological fields have done with language processing, and asking how we might use these methods productively to better understand and teach language. 

2) Teaching communication skills to STEM students. I have taught writing and communication for many years, and have developed a particular love of teaching STEM students to write in their disciplines. I have special interests in computer science writing, graduate students, first-generation students, disabilities, and academic writing.

Outside of work, some of my favorite things include painting, kayaking, fancy food, genealogy, Russian literature, drinking tea, and hanging out with my partner, baby boy, dog, and 2 black cats. 

Research

My current research projects include the following. Please freely contact me about any of these!

• Theorizing how to interpret computational models, especially of textual corpora (and in the process, figuring out what "interpret" can mean!)

• Better understanding differences and norms across disciplinary writing, particularly in computer science

• Reconsidering how to teach students communication skills in the age of generative AI

• Teaching writing and communication skills effectively to technically-oriented students (i.e., at a tech university)

• Teaching oral presentation skills to students with speech-related disabilities and anxieties

• Supporting faculty across the university in teaching communication in their disciplines