Research

Broadly speaking, my research engages questions around rhetorics of health, wellness, (dis)ability, technology, and literacy. My approach is interdisciplinary and embraces collaboration. The thread connecting all of my projects is one that centers individuals’ lived experience through critical consideration of texts/discourse (broadly conceived), literacies, practices, bodies, and material objects.

Current Projects

lived experience with wellness programs

My current major project examines people’s daily lived experience with health, technology, and wellness beyond medical settings, specifically focusing on Employee Wellness Programs (EWPs) as a site of wellness discourse and practice. My findings highlight how institutional power, discourse, and technologies work together to shape ideas about health, bodies, and what it means to enact wellness in different spaces.

Selected Publications & Awards

Stambler, D. M. (2022, May). The rhetoric of employee wellness: Toward a model of anti-ableism. Paper presented at the Rhetoric Society of America Conference: Baltimore, MD. *Gerard A. Hauser Award Recipient for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper

Stambler, D. (2021). Eating data: The rhetoric of food, medicine, and technology in employee wellness programs. Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, 4(2), 158-186. https://doi.org/10.5744/rhm.2021.2003

Rhetoric Society of America Institute Graduate Development Award (2021). Grant awarded to support dissertation research on medical ableism.

Building Digital Literacy BDL@DLI

I work as an international research partner in the Building Digital Literacy cluster at the Digital Life Institute, an international research group, developing and implementing pedagogical activities and theorizing ways to foster multiple literacies for engagement in a digital life.

Selected Publications

Davis, K., Stambler, D. M., Campbell, J., Hocutt, D., Duin, A., & Pedersen, I. (2022). Writing infrastructure with the Fabric of Digital Life platform. Communication Design Quarterly, 10(2), 44-56.

Davis, K., Stambler, D., Veeramoothoo, S., Ranade, N., Hocutt, D., Tham, J., Misak, J., Duin, A., & Pedersen, I. (2021). Fostering student digital literacy through the Fabric of Digital Life. Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/fostering-student-digital-literacy-through-the-fabric-of-digital-life/

microbiome translations

This collaborative project investigates public discourse about human microbiomes, studying how popular health articles use evidence and expertise to make claims about applying scientific research to daily health practices, how readers might evaluate them, and how translations of science to a popular audience might contribute to the perpetuation of health misinformation.

Selected Presentations

Stambler, D. M., James, J. M., & Kessler, M. M. (2023, February). Navigating credibility & uncertainty in public health discourse: What microbiome research in popular magazines can tell us about teaching for layered literacies. Paper presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC): Chicago, IL.

Stambler, D. M., James, J. M., & Kessler, M. M. (2022, May). One weird trick doctors hate: Misinformation, health literacy, and the accommodation of scientific microbiome research in popular media. Paper presented at the Rhetoric Society of America Conference: Baltimore, MD.

Recently Completed Projects

Ethos and MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE-MAKING: Recipe Practices in Premodern England

In this independent project, I examined recipe writing, curation, and circulation practices in premodern England, illuminating the ways household medical information was developed, collected, shared, and used. Findings from the study have insights for how we define technical communication and for understanding how tactical technical communication and expertise operate in non-digital/non-internet spaces.

Selected Publications

Dysphonia, distress, and perceived control

This study included an interdisciplinary team of faculty, research staff, graduate students, and undergraduates from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Writing Studies and the University of Minnesota Medical School. The team conducted usability and user experience (UX) research on a web-based health intervention, with findings applicable to medical UX and methodological insights that extend conversations in UX and patient experience design (PXD).

Selected Publications

Stambler, D. M., Feddema, E., Riggins, L., Campeau, K., Breuch, L. K., Kessler, M. M., & Misono, S. (2022). REDCap delivery of a web-based intervention for patients with voice disorders: Usability study. JMIR Human Factors, 9(1), e26461.

Kessler, M. M., Breuch, L. K., Stambler, D. M., Campeau, K., Riggins, L., Feddema, E., Doornink, S. & Misono, S. (2021). User experience in health & medicine: Building methods for patient experience design in multidisciplinary collaborations. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 51(4), 380-406.