2005: Stephen Doheny-Farina

Citation for
Stephen Doheny-Farina
Elevated to ATTW Fellow, March 2005
(written by Elizabeth Tebeaux)

We are here tonight to elevate Stephen Doheny-Farina to Fellow of ATTW. The Fellow designation, developed in 1982, recognizes accomplishments of individuals who have provided sustained commitment to technical writing in service, research, teaching, and/or service to the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. The record of each Fellow illustrates such commitment. Steve’s record shows a record covering 23 years of teaching, research, and service to technical communication.

Steve has been involved in technical communication since 1982, when he was a teaching assistant at RPI. He served as Assistant Professor at UNC—Charlotte, 1984-1988, before moving to Clarkson, where he is now a professor in the Technical Communications Department. In these positions, he has taught a wide range of courses related to technical communication and has graciously served ATTW and other profesional associations.

Since 1987 he has received five major awards for his research in technical communication:

  • The Rigo Award for “Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Technical Communication” from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Documentation (ACM SIGDOC), October 2002.
  • John W. Graham, Jr., Faculty Research Award, Clarkson University, 1992. Given “for outstanding research accomplishments by a young faculty member and promise of future achievements.”
  • Best Collection of Essays, 1989 National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Awards for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication; for Effective Documentation: What We Have Learned from Research, MIT Press, 1988.
  • Best Collection of Essays, 1988 National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Awards for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication; for Legal and Ethical Aspects of Technical Communication, a special issue of the IEEE Transactions of Professional Communication, vPC-30, n3, 1987.
  • Best Article Reporting Formal Research, 1987 NCTE Awards for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication; for “Writing in an Emerging Organization: An Ethnographic Study,” in Written Communication, v.3, n.2, April 1986, pp. 158-185.

He has also been involved in 10 grant projects that bear directly on technical communication, such as

  • “Cyberspace, Communication, and Computers: Implications for Canada.” Canadian Studies Research Grant, Canadian Embassy, Washington, DC.
  • “Particle Transport, Deposition and Removal: Combined Research and Curriculum Development,” National Science Foundation; PI: Goodarz Ahmadi, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Clarkson.
  • “Thin Film Technologies: Combined Research-Curriculum Development.” (multi-media communication technologies) National Science Foundation ENG CRCD Program.
  • “Effective Engineering and Design Courseware via Boundary Methods.” National Science Foundation.

His research record includes a variety of articles, book chapters, and four books on technical communication:

  • The Grid and the Village. New Haven: Yale University Press, September 2001.
  • The Wired Neighborhood. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
  • Rhetoric, Innovation, Technology: Case Studies of Technical Communication in Technology Transfers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
  • Effective Documentation: What We Have Learned From Research. S. Doheny-Farina, ed., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.

He has been involved in ATTW, STC, and IEEE in addition to serving in various consulting activities. He is a member of the editorial board of JBTC, and referees from a variety of technical communication journals and presses. He has responded to any call for help that ATTW has made.

Steve’s academic record as a technical communication faculty member represents our field with excellence. His record exemplifies the the kind of record to which those entering our profession should aspire.