Faculty Profile: Maureen Mathison

Maureen Mathison is an associate professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric Studies. She completed her PhD in Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) where she was a research assistant for the National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy housed at CMU and Berkeley. At CMU, Mathison investigated students’ identities as writers as they became more immersed in their majors. She has always been curious about disciplinary practices, and especially those of science.

Mathison's scholarship focuses on the rhetoric of science and science writing. She studies science as a rhetorical practice, deeply embedded within social and institutional influences that shape and are shaped by human activity. She also studies undergraduate students’ beliefs about science and how they engage with them in their writing.

She teaches classes on the rhetoric of science, science writing, and technical writing, supporting students’ development in thinking about science and how to persuasively communicate about it, not only with other scientists, but with the public as well. Says Mathison, “STEM majors who enroll in my rhetoric of science courses often comment that the material provides a new way for them to think about science that enhances their understanding of its practices.” 

She is currently working on a book manuscript, Unruly Controversy in Science, which identifies several typologies of controversy that illuminate scientific practices as the scientific community encounters controversy from the very serious (such as fraud) to more widespread occurrences such as paradigm shifts (where older theories about science are discarded for newer ones). Through a series of four case studies, she examines how the scientific community addresses each case to mitigate violations of scientific norms. Rather than working from media accounts of science controversy, Mathison is working from primary sources such as interviews with the scientists involved, archival materials, and scientific journals for first-hand responses to the problems.

Mathison believes that science is in a precarious position today. Many people have lost trust in science and we are at risk of declining scientific innovation because of current sentiments. Some of this is due to misunderstandings about how the process of science works. Says Mathison, “What I am really interested in is science’s standing – scientific ethos or credibility – and how science works to maintain it. Through historical rhetorical analysis, I am finding the back stories of controversy that show science entangled within a web of stakeholders that push and pull on its ethos.” By examining controversies within science, she studies what constitutes problematic events or moments for science, how they occur and unfold, what social and institutional forces influence them, and how they are adjudicated for successful outcomes in the scientific community.

Mathison is also working on an article on government regulation and anti-science views in medicine and a study on how students learn to write laboratory reports when their experiments fail.