Dr. Josh

Dr. Josh has always had a passion for language and learning. He earned a BA in German Studies from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and then lived in Hamburg, Germany, teaching English as a Fulbright Scholar in the late 1990s.

Upon returning to the U.S., he worked for a while as a carpenter in Montana, then took a job as a public radio reporter in South Dakota. He loved the work of gathering sound and stories, and several of his pieces were featured on National Public Radio.

Eventually life brought him to St Paul, Minnesota, where got into technical writing and user experience research. This work, somewhat to his surprise, allowed him to lean on the listening and storytelling skills that he had built up as a teacher and a reporter. He went back to school to study technical writing and rhetoric at the University of Minnesota and eventually completed MS and PhD degrees there.

Today he is a professor who teaches rhetoric and professional writing and conducts research that involves the intersections of rhetoric, technology and teaching.