Desiree Dighton

Desiree Dighton is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at East Carolina University. Her research focuses on feminist/decolonial methodologies, social movement rhetoric, design justice, and rhetorical criticism. She teaches courses in professional writing, visual rhetoric, and new media literacies. Dighton holds a Ph.D. in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media from North Carolina State University and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Her work examines technological affordances and their impact on issues like gentrification, emphasizing ethical data practices and community-engaged research. Key projects include analyzing anti-gentrification rhetoric on Twitter and co-designing civic spaces through visual rhetoric. She has received grants from the NEH for digital humanities initiatives, including a project on spatial humanities and Africana studies.

Publications span journals like Kairos and Review of Communication, with a focus on data visualization, rhetorical frameworks for social media analysis, and urban design. She actively participates in conferences like Computers and Writing and the Rhetoric Society of America.