Deborah Harris

Deborah Harris serves as Associate Director and Continuing Lecturer in the Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She teaches across lower-division, upper-division, and graduate levels, specializing in science writing and humanities-oriented courses. She holds a PhD from the University of Arizona and previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University before joining UCSB in 2011.

Deborah’s research interests span medical rhetoric, body rhetoric, popular culture, and composition studies. Her work critically examines how media and cultural narratives shape perceptions of health, beauty, and identity. Notably, her book *Media and the Rhetoric of Body Perfection* (2014) explores Western cultural imperatives around body transformation through cosmetic surgery and weight-loss discourses.

Her articles address intersections of health communication, pedagogy, and societal crises. For instance, recent work discusses teaching writing for health professionals amid the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, while earlier research analyzes trauma-informed pedagogy and body politics in composition classrooms.

Deborah has no listed scientific awards but has contributed reviews for scholarly journals and magazines such as *MAKE Literary Magazine* and *Souciant Magazine*. No grants or labs/teams are explicitly mentioned in the provided texts.