Lisa L. Phillips

Lisa L. Phillips is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Texas Tech University, with faculty affiliations in the Climate Center and Women's & Gender Studies programs. Her work bridges environmental rhetorics, Indigenous and intersectional feminist frameworks, and sensory studies, focusing on how marginalized communities navigate environmental degradation through olfactory and embodied discourses.

• Current Projects: Olfactory Rhetoric book (2025), AI ethics in education
• Teaching: Rhetorical theory, sensory rhetorics, human-centered AI, professional writing

Her research interrogates Western sensory hierarchies privileging vision, emphasizing smell as a critical tool for understanding environmental injustice. She employs decolonial and intersectional methodologies to analyze how race, class, and gender shape olfactory narratives about pollution, climate change, and living conditions. Recent work examines generative AI's rhetorical intelligence and implicit bias in technical communication.

Lisa’s publications include the co-edited volume Grassroots Activisms (Ohio State UP, 2024) and NSF-funded teaching modules on sensory data (2016–2017). She contributes to journals like IEEE Transactions in Professional Communication and Grassroots Writing Research Journal, with forthcoming work on AI anxiety (2026) and positionality (2027). Her interdisciplinary approach integrates climate science, critical pedagogy, and technical communication.