Dan Richards

Dan Richards is Professor of Technical Communication and Rhetoric in the Department of English at Old Dominion University. His research and teaching focus on technical communication, visual risk communication, user experience (UX) design, rhetoric, and the teaching of writing, with a particular emphasis on environmental and climate-related issues such as sea-level rise and flood risk.

• Immediate Past Chair of ACM SIGDOC (2019-2023)
• Teaches undergraduate/graduate courses in technical communication and rhetoric
• Former instructor in Old Dominion’s MBA program (business writing, 2010-2020)

His research explores the intersection of UX design with political negotiation, posthuman theory, and environmental action, particularly in coastal communities. He investigates how visualizations, interactive tools, and narrative strategies shape public understanding of risks.

Recent publications highlight trends in:

• Posthumanist approaches to disaster rhetorics
• Visual and geospatial risk communication for sea-level rise
• Interactive tools for flood risk assessment and community engagement
• Critiques of neutrality in pedagogy and UX design
• Applications of the ASERT framework for stakeholder-driven climate planning
• Legacy of Deweyan pragmatism in nonhuman agency theories