Dr. Nora K. Rivera Assistant Professor - Technical Communication & Rhetoric

Dr. Rivera’s research interests include technical communication, cross-cultural UX, translation, instructional design, and cultural rhetorics. Her current book projects include a collaborative collection of testimonios and a localization study for legal systems. The collection of testimonios explores the personal journeys of Indigenous interpreters and translators working across Mexico, Peru, and the United States. The localization study examines how Indigenous court interpreters localize technical legal terms that do not exist in their languages through prototyping digital legal glossaries in eight Indigenous languages from Oaxaca, Mexico, which are often needed in U.S. immigration courts.

Ph.D., University of Texas at El Paso

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Books

Rivera, N. K. (2024). The rhetorical mediator: Understanding agency in Indigenous translation and interpretation through Indigenous approaches to UX. Utah State University Press.

Castellanos García, A., Gonzales, L., Kleinert, C. V., López Sarabia, T., Matías Juan, E., Morales-Good, M., & Rivera, N. K. (2022). Indigenous Language Interpreters and Translators: Toward the Full Enactment of all Language Rights. intermezzo-enculturation.

Selected Publications

Rivera, N. K. (in press). Empathizing and defining issues with testimonios: A case study on the impact of teaching UX through a social justice lens. In H. N. Turner and E. Rose (Eds.), Teaching UX: A Process Approach. Routledge. 

Matzke, A. & Rivera, N. K. (in press). Bad idea: AI creates shortcuts for good thinking. Generative Idea: AI creates opportunities for more complex critical thinking. In Basgier, C., Mills, A., Olejnik, M., Rodak, M., & Sharma, S. (Eds.), Bad ideas about AI and writing: Toward generative practices for teaching, learning, and communication. WAC Clearinghouse.

Rivera, N. K. (2025). Localization is a political act: Collaborating with Indigenous language speakers in communities. In N. N. Jones, L. Gonzales, A. M. Haas, and M. F. Williams (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Social Justice in Technical and Professional Communication. Routledge.

Black, S., Cardinal, A., Garcia Santana, O., Gonzales, L., Lawrence, H., Lee, S., Martinez, D., Rivera, N., Shelton, C., & Walwema, J. (2025). A linguistic justice statement for the field of professional, technical, and scientific communication (PTSC). In N. N. Jones, L. Gonzales, A. M. Haas, and M. F. Williams (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Social Justice in Technical and Professional Communication. Routledge.

Rivera, N. K. (2024). Carrying meaning, bridging worlds: Indigenous language localization in Western courts. IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (ProComm), Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 84-88.

Rivera, N. K. (2024). Online design thinking and community-based learning: Co-designing an Indigenous curriculum to help redress language marginalization. Programmatic Perspectives, 14(2), 88-119.

Rivera, N. K. & Morales-Good, M. (2024). La traducción es activismo: Desafiando la verticalidad institucional a través de la traducción e interpretación en lenguas indígenas [Translation is activism: Resisting institutional verticality through translation and interpretation in Indigenous languages]. In C. Kleinert, E. Monzó Nebot, and V. Tasa Fuster (Eds.), La traducción y la interpretación como claves en la protección de los derechos lingüísticos de las comunidades indígenas. Granada, Spain: Editorial Comares.

Rivera, N. K. (2022). Understanding agency through testimonios: An Indigenous approach to UX research. Technical Communication, 69(4), 8-26.

Rivera, N. (2021). Cultural biases in transitional writing courses and their effect on Hispanic students in Texas. In A. Bhusal (Ed.), Teaching Practices and Language Ideologies for Multilingual Classrooms (pp. 39-66). IGI Global.

Rivera, N. & Gonzales, L. (2021). Community engagement in TPC programs during times of crises: Embracing Chicana and Latina feminist practices. Programmatic Perspectives, 12(2), 39-65.

Rivera, N. (2020). Chicanx murals: Decolonizing place and (re)writing the terms of composition. College Composition and Communication, 72(1), 118-149.

Rivera, N. (2020). “If Aristotle had cooked”: Contemporary feminist practices within the rhetoric of young Latinas’ spoken word performances. Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, 20(1), 56-82.

Selected Honors and Awards

2025 ATTW Best Article Reporting Qualitative or Quantitative Research. Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW).

2025 CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication Award in the category of Best Article Reporting Qualitative or Quantitative Research in Technical or Scientific Communication. Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).

2025 CCCC Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention. Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).

2024 James M. Lufkin Award for best ProComm paper. IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (ProComm).

2023-2024 Faculty Grant for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity. Chapman University.

2023 STC Frank R. Smith Award for Outstanding Journal Article, Society for Technical Communication.

2022 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Fellowship. Worlds in Collision. Adelphi University.

2022 AAHHE & ETS Outstanding Dissertation Award, 1^st Place Winner, American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE).

2022 LASA/Oxfam America Martin Diskin Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention, Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

2020-2021 UTEP’s Liberal Arts Outstanding Dissertation Award, 1^st Place Winner, University of Texas at El Paso.

2020 Antiracist Programs and Pedagogies Grant. Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC).

2019 Rhetoric and Composition Outstanding Research Award, University of Texas at El Paso.

2018-2019 Women of Color in Computing Fellowship. Coalition of Women of Color in Computer and the Kapor Center.