I am excited to announce the publication of my book, Design Thinking in Technical Communication, by Routledge (Taylor & Francis). I am honored to join the community of authors who have published in the ATTW Technical and Professional Communication Book Series.

You may pre-order on publisher’s website for paperback, hardback, or ebook version of the book. The release date is May 19, 2021. The book is also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play (ebook).

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Like a dissertation, writing this book was no small feat; but thanks to ongoing support and care by friends and colleagues in the field, it was made doable and even enjoyable. I am forever grateful to all of you who have been listening, offering feedback, and giving me a confidence boost when I needed it most. I aspire to do the same for others on a similar writing journey.

Here comes the lengthy acknowledgement.

This book project has benefited from the support and feedback of many smart, kind, and generous individuals. I would like to use this space to recognize their contributions.

First, I thank Tharon Howard, editor of the Routledge ATTW Book Series in Technical and Professional Communication, for believing in this project and helping me shape it into its current form. I also thank the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript proposal for offering excellent feedback that improved the focus of this work. A heartfelt thank you to Grant Schatzman, editorial assistant at Routledge / Taylor & Francis, and his team for guiding me through the publication process. 

To all the students and industry professionals who participated in the studies of this book, thank you for sharing your experiences and insights with me. I thank the makerspace managers at the University of Minnesota Anderson Labs, Georgia Tech Invention Studio, and Case Western Think[box] who hosted and showed me around when I was observing the sites. Thank you to Josh Halverson for introducing me to the key personnel. A special shout out to the ever-so-patient staff members at the University of Minnesota Liberal Arts Technologies and Innovation Services (LATIS), particularly Samantha Porter, for assisting me with multiple deployments of maker technologies in my classes. 

I especially thank all my WRIT 3562 Technical and Professional Writing students in the Fall 2017 semester for embracing and engaging with the design challenge study. You inspire me with your creativity and dedication to learning. 

Next, I want to thank a number of colleagues and friends who have read and provided relevant feedback on this manuscript. Scott Weedon, Beau Pihlaja, Antonio Byrd, Rob Grace, and Joe Moses––your comments and suggestions helped make this a better book. To my peers with whom I have shared different parts of this book during my research process––bonus points if you were a part of the Emerging Technologies Research Collaboratory––thank you for your listening and vote of confidence when I needed them most. 

I am grateful to have been a part of the University of Minnesota’s Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication doctoral program, which challenged me intellectually and shaped my scholarly identity. To my amazing advisor Ann Hill Duin, thank you for sharing your expertise and energy with me even after I have graduated from the program. Many thanks to the Writing Studies faculty, including Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Laura Gurak, Donald Ross, Tom Reynolds, John Logie, Pat Bruch, Richard Graff, and Christina Haas, for making technical communication such an exciting field of inquiry. 

The design thinking community in technical communication has continued to grow. I am thankful for the productive exchanges I got to have with so many smart humans at conferences, over Twitter, and on other occasions about design thinking. These scholars include Emma Rose, Rebecca Walton, Natasha Jones, Kristen Moore, Gustav Verhulsdonck, Isabel Pedersen, Debby Andrews, Liz Lane, Rebecca Pope-Ruark, Kirk St.Amant, Joyce Locke Carter, Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq, Adam Strantz, Nadya Shalamova, Tammy Rice-Bailey, Chen Chen, Jack Labriola, Luke Thominet, Halcyon Lawrence, Daniel Richards, Lauren Garskie, Beth Shirley, Lauren Cagle, Josephine Walwema, John Spartz, Maria Novotny, Les Hutchinson, Estee Beck, Andrew Kulak, Laura Gonzales, April O’Brien, Ashanka Kumari, Shannon Butts, Nupoor Ranade, Jason Luther, Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Matthew Vetter, Devon Cook, Jason Markins, Jialei Jiang, Derek Ross, Quan Zhou, and Xiaoli Li. 

I thank my mentors and colleagues in the Department of English and the Technical Communication and Rhetoric program at Texas Tech University for their constant encouragement and support for this project. 

Finally, I thank my family members, especially my mom for always listening to me talk about my work and life. To my partner and love, Kamm, thank you for cheering me on and giving me time and space to complete this project.