Baylynne VanWagenen PhD Student - Technical Communication & Rhetoric

Baylynne VanWagenen is a PhD student in technical communication and rhetoric with interests in the rhetoric of health and medicine, advocacy, and community-engaged research. Her current work explores how communication practices shape access to health and legal resources, with a particular focus on the role of nonprofit, advocacy organizations. As a writing instructor, Baylynne also studies writing pedagogy, with interests in teaching for transfer and alternative approaches to assessment.

Education

Graduate Certificate | Texas Tech | Teaching Technical and Professional Writing 

MA | California State University, Sacramento | English Composition 

BA | Brigham Young University, Provo | English 

Presentations

Building an Ethic of Care in Community-Centered Research, Pedagogy, and Practice. Panel presentation with Madiha Patel and Yogita Maharaj. SIGDOC, October 2026.

Messy Realities, Meaningful Praxis: Navigating Complexity in Technical Communication Research. Panel presentation with Angelique Tapia. University of Washington Praxis Conference, May 2026.

Whose Stories Matter? Contested Narratives in California's Mental Health Interventions. Rhetoric of Health and Medicine Symposium, October 2025.

Writing for Health: A Cross-campus Collaborative Approach to First-year Health Research and Communication. Panel presentation with colleagues from UC Merced. Writing in the Health Professions Conference, June 2025.

Cross-Campus Co-Mentoring: A Remix of DEIA Innovations at the University of California. Panel presentation with colleagues from UC Santa Barbara. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Baltimore, MD. April 2025.

Publications

Book Review: Strategic Interventions in Mental Health Rhetoric. Technical Communication Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 1, 2025.

Embracing Digital Literacies: A Study of First-Year Students' Digital Compositions. Xchanges: An Interdisciplinary Technical Communication and Writing Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, 2015.