Laura Patterson

Professor of Teaching

Communications, School of Engineering

Office: EME4275
Phone: 250.807.9635
Email: laura.patterson@ubc.ca

Research Summary

Technical and professional communication; Community service learning; Ethics; Engineering education

Courses & Teaching

Technical communication; Engineering communication; Persuasion and rhetoric; Technical presentations; Graduate writing and research; First-year writing

Biography

Laura Patterson has taught technical and professional communication to engineering students since 2002. She applies her background in rhetoric and persuasion to her teaching of technical reports, proposals, and presentations to both graduate and undergraduate engineering students.

Dr. Patterson conducts pedagogical research, with special focus on Community Service Learning (CSL) and engineering education. Her dedication to CSL was recognized by being named a Valued Partner of the Community Service Learning Program in 2017. In addition, she is the Principle Investigator on a longitudinal study surveying students on engineering students’ self-perceptions around the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board’s (CEAB) non-technical graduate attributes. She has shared the findings of that study with the Canadian Society for Engineering Education (CEEA) and IEEE’s Professional Communication Society conferences.

She is committed to promoting ethics at all levels of academia. She initiated the School of Engineering’s Ethics Committee. She served on the Okanagan Senate for six years, chairing the Appeals of Standing and Discipline Committee. In addition, she has served on UBC’s Conflict of  Interest/Conflict of Commitment committee for several years.

Degrees

Ph.D. - Technical Communication and Rhetoric, Texas Tech University
M.A. - Rhetoric, Culture, and Popular Media, University of Saskatchewan
B.A. - English, University of Saskatchewan