I conduct research in the intersections of mental health communication and mental healthcare management. My dissertation project focuses on neurodiverse user experience and communication design for student disability service applications.  

This page contains a selection of recent scholarly activities – a full CV is available on request.

Education

Texas Tech University

(ABD). PhD Technical Communication and Rhetoric 

Angelo State University

(2020). MBA Healthcare Management 

(2020). MA Communication  

(2018). BA Communication

Research

Stark, I. (2021). Neuro-positionality in user-centered design: The case of student disability services. In SIGDOC '21: The 39th ACM international conference on design of communication (pp. 382-383). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3472714.3475818 

Stark, I. (2021). Laughing the pain away: The cathartic value of relief humor in health communication. In Cases on applied and therapeutic humor (pp. 3-10). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-4528-7.ch002 

Stark, I. (2020). Representations of autism in popular media: Rhetorical disability in The Good Doctor (Master's thesis). Angelo State University. https://asu-ir.tdl.org/handle/2346.1/36177 

Service

(2020-). Co-President, Raider Rhetoric Society, Texas Tech University. 

(2020-2021). Assistant Director, Studio E Productions, Texas Tech University

Awards

(2021). 1st Place, Microsoft Student Research Competition, Special Interest Group for Design of Communication. 

(2021). 1st Place, 3-Minute Thesis Competition, Texas Tech University. 

(2021). 1st Place, Canva Creative Competition, Texas Social Media Research Institute. 

PhD in Technical Communication & Rhetoric
Email: istark@ttu.edu