Rhetoric and Writing PhD students, Tahenza Biva, Athena Gordon, and Cat Hubka attended the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) conference held April 17 and 18, 2026. Tahenaz Biva, who is a first-year PhD student in the Rhetoric and Writing program, presented her work, “Bridging Linguistic Borders: AI, ‘Professional English,’ and the Politics of Voice in Technical Writing Classrooms,” which built on the conference theme of “Bridging Borders: Technical Communication as a Site of Geographic, Intercultural, and Technical Communication.”
The conference, held in El Paso at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) campus, challenged attendees to consider borderlands as inspirational sites for moving beyond binaries and dualities in this complex and difficult time. In their piece, “The Just Use of Imagination: A Call to Action,” Drs. Natasha N. Jones and Miriam F. Williams provided a blueprint for what technical communicators should do in times of global crises and call for those in the field to do their part. Sessions included topics such as AI, culturally-responsive pedagogy, access, ethics, and the environment.
