The winner of the 2018 CRDM Distinguished Alumni Award is Dr. Ashley Mehlenbacher. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher is a Canada Research Chair in Science, Health, and Technology Communication at the University of Waterloo, in Canada. Before joining Waterloo in 2015, she was an Assistant Professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University. Mehlenbacher is the author of On Expertise: Cultivating Character, Goodwill, and Practical Wisdom (Penn State UP), Science Communication Online: Engaging Experts and Publics on the Internet (Ohio State UP) and coeditor, with Carolyn R. Miller, of Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (Palgrave). She is also a General Co-Editor, with Carolyn R. Miller, at Genre Across Borders and is also a past Board Member and past President of the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine (ARSTM).

Notable achievements: Mehlenbacher’s work has been funded through numerous agencies and programs, including the Canada Research Chair program, the Ontario Early Researcher Award (ERA) program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Bob Harding and Lois Claxton Humanities and Social Sciences Endowment Fund, and through a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Science Communication Skills grant. Mehlenbacher has won two Outstanding Performance Awards, in 2017 and 2020, from the University of Waterloo, which are given for outstanding contributions in teaching and scholarship. She is also the winner of the 2020 Fellows’ Early Career Award from the Rhetoric Society of America.

About the Award

Sponsored by the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Program, the CRDM Annual Distinguished Alumni Award celebrates program alumni who have distinguished themselves in scholarly research and professional life since graduation. The award rewards alumni who have demonstrated some or all of the qualities below:

• excellence in interdisciplinary work;
• distinguished scholarly research and/or professional achievement since graduation;
• sustained engagement in and ongoing commitments to the CRDM program;
• outstanding service (community, institution, discipline/professional field or organization);
• exemplary engagement within their discipline and/or professional field.

Every year, at the end of the Fall semester, the CRDM Director will issue a call for nominations. CRDM core, affiliated faculty, and students are invited to make nominations. To nominate an alum for the award, please submit the alumnus/a’s name, contact information, a current CV, and a brief (no more than 2 pages) nomination letter explaining how the alumnus/a meets the criteria outlined above and why he/she should be considered for the award.