Meredith Johnson
Professor
CONTACT
Office: CPR 301-J
Phone: 813-974-0109
Email
BIO
Dr. Meredith A. Johnson is Professor of English and served as the DeBartolo Chair in Liberal Arts (2023-2025). She studies the role of professional and technical communication (PTC) in shaping organizational resilience. Her first book, co-authored with W. Michele Simmons and Patricia Sullivan, was published by Routledge as part of their ATTW Series in Technical and Professional Communication. It won the 2020 CCCC Research Impact Award. Her most recent research investigates PTC’s role in promoting workplace well-being.
Johnson’s scholarship has appeared in edited collections and journals, including Technical Communication Quarterly, Technical Communication, IEEE: Transactions on Professional Communication, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, POROI, Review of Communication, enculturation, Computers and Composition: An International Journal, and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. She is the recipient of the Nell Ann Pickett Award for Best Article in Technical Communication Quarterly, the National Communication Association’s Distinguished Book Chapter Award for Philosophy of Communication, and USF’s Faculty Outstanding Research Achievement Award.
Johnson teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the Department of English and the Judy Genshaft Honors College. She has served as Director of the Graduate Program in Rhetoric and Composition and the Interim Director of the Undergraduate Major in Professional and Technical Communication. She currently directs the Graduate Certificate in Professional and Technical Communication, which she also founded.
PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS
Johnson’s teaching has been recognized with USF’s Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award. Her graduate students have won USF’s Outstanding Dissertation Award and CCCC’s Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication. They have gone on to tenure-track and collegiate teaching positions, including placements at the University of Kentucky, Virginia Tech, University of Pennsylvania, University of Arkansas, Appalachian State University, Old Dominion, and Middle Tennessee State University. Those seeking employment in industry have gone on to work for Marvel, DC Comics, Indeed.com, Red Hat, and the Palm Harbor Public Library.
Johnson brings her expertise in institutional rhetorics, civic engagement, public participation and deliberation, and usability to her students’ research projects and to her classroom.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Organizational Resilience and Well-being; Theories and Practice of Professional and Technical Communication
EDUCATION
Purdue University, English – Rhetoric and Composition, PhD (2005) & MA (2000)