Dr. Priyanka (Priya) Ganguly Assistant Professor - Technical Communication & Rhetoric

Dr. Priyanka (Priya) Ganguly (she/her) is an assistant professor in Technical Communication & Rhetoric who earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from Virginia Tech. Her research lies at the intersection of rhetorics of health and medicine (RHM), institutional communication, and global and transnational communication. She is particularly interested in the backstage rhetorics of communication design (broadly defined) in transnational institutional and extra-institutional contexts. Drawing on assemblage theory, articulation, and agency, and using qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups, she analyzes how multiple human and non-human components shape technical documentation in global public health. She investigates pressing and often stigmatized issues—such as menstruation, maternal nutrition, and abortion—that remain underexplored in both technical communication and health communication scholarship, with a focus on how political, cultural, and institutional forces influence their design and circulation.

Articles

Ganguly, P. (2025). Maternal Nutrition Indicator Ambiguity: The Impact of Power Assemblages in Transnational Spaces of Communication Design. Technical Communication Quarterly, 1–20.

Ganguly, P. (2025). Constructing Transnational Security Logics: The Representation of Mothers and Communities in Global Maternal Health Narratives. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. Accepted.

Ganguly, P. (2022). Review of the Statement of Purpose (SP) Genre: A Shared-Understanding of Rhetorical Appeals in Technical Communication SPs. English for Specific Purposes, 68, 1–13.

Sano-Franchini, J., Jones, A. M., Ganguly, P., Robertson, C. J., Shafer, L. J., Wagon, M., Awotayo, O., & Bronson, M. (2022). Slack, Social Justice, and Online Technical Communication Pedagogy. Technical Communication Quarterly.

Ganguly, P. (2021). Rhetorical Style Analysis of the Statement of Purpose (SP) Genre: A Shared Understanding of Lexis in Successful SPs. Xchanges, 16(1), 1–25.

Ganguly, P. (2021). Tweeting Reproductive Justice (RJ) Advocacy through #AbortionMeraHaq: A Social Justice Analysis of Digital RJ-Counterpublics. The 39^th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC’21).

Book Chapters

Gerdes, J., Ganguly, P., & Shafer, L. J. (2023). COVID and Disability: Tactical Responses to Normative Vaccine Communication in Appalachia. In E. Winderman, A. L. Rowland, & J. Malkowski (Eds.), Covid and …: How to Do Rhetoric in a Pandemic (pp. 209–234). Michigan State University Press.

Edited Collection

Ewing, E. T., & Ganguly, P. (2024). Challenging Stories: Exploring the Intersections between Health and the Humanities. Blacksburg: Virginia Tech Publishing.