Ryan Boettger Ph.D.

EDUCATION
PhD, Technical Communication & Rhetoric, Texas Tech University

MA, Technical Communication, Texas Tech University

BA, Communication, UT San Antonio

 
BIOGRAPHY

Ryan Boettger received his PhD in Technical Communication and Rhetoric from Texas Tech University and a graduate certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Pennsylvania State University.

His research areas include AI and writing, prompt engineering, human-AI collaboration in education, curriculum development and assessment, content analysis, and data-driven learning. His work has been published in top-tier tech comm and writing studies journals as well as in practitioner outlets. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB).

Dr. Boettger is also co-creator (with Stefanie Wulff, University of Florida) of The Technical Writing Project, a linguistic corpus of student technical writing. The current version of this project contains 5,810 texts written by 871 students. Each text is annotated with 11 metadata variables (e.g., the student's gender, major, academic classification), allowing writing researchers to conduct both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

His recent work focuses on AI integration in tech comm, including research on AI-assisted copy editing, student perceptions of AI ethics, and frameworks for responsible AI use in higher education. He led a team that developed the "Adapting to Innovation Playbook" for the THECB, providing institutional leaders with strategies for implementing generative AI, OER, microcredentials, and accelerated learning models. He has discussed these topics on the Inside Tech Comm podcast and other media outlets.

Professionally, Dr. Boettger has over two decades of experience as a technical communicator. For six years, he worked for the Texas Army National Guard, where he edited natural resource, wildland fire, and cultural resource management plans for five Army bases. Prior to joining UNT, he served as the Managing Director of Grant Proposal and Program Development for the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women's Health at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, where he coordinated the external funding applications for the Institute's 26 researchers and edited grants that sought a total of $8.75 million in external funding from the National Institutes of Health and the United States Department of Agriculture.

He currently serves on the editorial board for Technical Communication Quarterly and reviews for numerous journals in the field. He is the former editor of the Wiley/IEEE Press book series in Professional Engineering Communication and former deputy editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. Outside of work, he enjoys hanging out with his son.

 
TEACHING INTERESTS
Proposal Writing, Content Analysis, Teaching Methods

 
TEACHING
TECM 5170: Grants and Proposals

 
RESEARCH INTERESTS
STEM Education, Technical Editing, Content Analysis, The Intersection Between AI and Writing