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Loel Kim

Associate Professor Emeritus

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loelkim@memphis.edu
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Loel Kim

Education

B.A., 1991, University of Wyoming
M.A., 1992, Carnegie Mellon University
Ph.D., 1998, Carnegie Mellon University

Academic Summary

Loel Kim is an associate professor emeritus in the Department of English, having taught in the professional writing program. She is also former director of the Center for the Study of Rhetoric and Applied Communication (CSRAC), a cross-departmental collaboration with the Dept. of Communication.

Her research encompasses aspects of the social and cognitive factors involved in collaborative settings, particularly those that are electronically created, such as online and multimodal environments. Most recently, her research has focused on healthcare professionals and patient communication, as engaged in the informed consent process at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and a case study with Dr. Amanda J. Young on patient communication training for adolescent patients with cystic fibrosis. Another project will focus on usability testing an existing Health Communication app for cancer patient family caregivers so that it is more appropriate for use by the family caregivers rather than with health professionals.

Finally, she is working on a larger project examining the technological communication modes such as social networks, blogs, and podcasts, in support of 21st c. cottage industries in various areas of the fiber arts.

Select Publications

  • Kim, Loel, and Lane, Liz. "Universal Design for Dynamic Technical Communication Publications and UIs: Reconsidering Document Design." Proceedings of SIGDOC 2019: "Broadening the Boundaries of Communication Design" October 4-6, 2019, Portland, OR. 
  • Young, A. J., & Kim, L. (2018). Moving toward patient autonomy: A case study of communication in adolescent Cystic Fibrosis care. Child Life Focus, Association of Child Life Professionals.
  • Young, A.J., Kim, L., Li, S., Baker, J., Schmidt, M., Camp, J.W., Barfield, R.C. (2010). Agency and communication challenges in discussions of informed consent in pediatric cancer research. Qualitative Health Research, 20(5), 628-643.
  • Swarts, Jason, and Loel Kim, Eds. (2009). New Technological Spaces: Mastering the Literacies of Thinking and Doing Across Multiple Modalities, Special Issue of Technical Communication Quarterly, 18(3). Association of Teachers of Technical Writing.
  • Kim, Loel, Young, Amanda J., Neimeyer, Robert A., Baker, Justin N., and Barfield, Raymond C. (2008). Keeping users at the center: Developing a multimedia interface for informed consent.Technical Communication Quarterly 17(3), Special Issue on Online Healthcare Communication, Amy Koerber and Brian Stills (Eds.), 335-357.
  • "Tracing Visual Narratives: User-testing Methodology for Developing a Multimedia Museum Show." Technical Communication 52.2 (2005): 1-17.
  • "Online Technologies for Teaching Writing: Students Respond to Teacher Comments in Voice and Written Modalities." Research in the Teaching of English 38.3 (2004): 304-37.
  • "Presenting Information on the Small-screen Interface: Effects of Table Formatting." IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 46.2 (2003): 1-11. With Michael Albers.
  • "Web Design Issues When Searching for Information in a Small Screen Display." Technical Communication 49.3 (2003): 314-29. With Michael Albers.
  • "Information Design for the Small-screen Interface: An Overview of Web Design Issues for Personal Digital Assistants." Technical Communication 49.1 (2002): 45-60.