Lucia Fitzgerald

Background

Lucia Fitzgerald is on the faculty of the Department of Communication & Media and holds a Ph.D. from the Technical University of Denmark. Before Porter, Lucia was a technical writer and documentation lead.

Lucia's research focuses on user documentation, with related work in rhetoric and persuasion; undergraduates are involved in the lab most terms.

Areas of expertise

• User documentation
• Rhetoric and persuasion
• Undergraduate research and project mentoring

Teaching

Lucia regularly teaches courses in Communication Studies, Professional & Technical Communication, English. Specific sections and syllabi are listed in the class schedule each term.

Courses lean on current problems from the field: students read recent work, reproduce a result or method, and then extend it. Lucia builds in low-stakes practice before graded work and gives written feedback on drafts.

Advising and office hours

Lucia advises students in the Communication & Media programs and holds weekly office hours during the fall and spring terms, posted on the office door and in the course pages. Prospective students are welcome to email to arrange a visit or a call.

Advising conversations usually cover course sequencing, whether to add a minor or a concentration, and how classroom work connects to internships, research, or graduate study. Students who are undecided are welcome; part of the job is helping them narrow things down.

Recent and representative work

Lucia's recent activity is a mix of peer-reviewed work, conference talks, and student-involved projects in user documentation and rhetoric and persuasion. Representative items:

• A peer-reviewed article on user documentation in a disciplinary journal.
• A conference paper on rhetoric and persuasion, co-authored with an undergraduate researcher.
• An internally funded project applying user documentation to a regional partner's problem.

Titles and venues here are illustrative. UW–Porter Falls is fictional; Lucia has no real publication record.

Get in touch

The fastest way to reach Lucia is email (lfitzgerald@uwporterfalls.edu); messages during the fall and spring terms are usually answered within two business days. Prospective students and families can ask the Communication & Media department office to set up a call, a class visit, or a meeting during an admitted-student day.