Dr. Kathryn Dolan has been named chair of English and technical communication at Missouri S&T. She will start this new role on Friday, Aug. 1. Dolan is currently a professor in the department.

“K.C. is an outstanding student advocate and a talented writer who is constantly pushing herself to find new and better ways to educate and inspire our students,” says Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, vice provost and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Education (CASE) at Missouri S&T. “I am confident she will bring that same energy, passion, and commitment to the entire English and technical communication department. I also want to sincerely thank Dr. Kristine Swenson for her many years of dedicated leadership. I’m thrilled that she will continue to contribute her expertise as a researcher within CASE.”

Dolan’s expertise includes nineteenth-century American literature, food studies, global studies and environmental criticism. Her research focuses on U.S. literature and food studies, stories about the foods we share, and how those influence culture.

Prior to joining the English and technical communication department at Missouri S&T, Dolan was a postdoctoral scholar in the English department at University of South Florida.

Dolan’s books include Beyond the Fruited Plain: Food and Agriculture in U.S. Literature, 1850-1905, Cattle Country: Livestock in the Cultural Imagination, and Breakfast Cereal: A Global History. Her next work, Henry David Thoreau and the Nick of Time: Temporality and Agency in Thoreau’s Era and Ours co-edited with John Kucich and Henrik Otterberg, will be published by Mercer University Press in 2025.

Dolan earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California-Los Angeles, a master’s degree from San José State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California-Santa Barbara, all in English.

About Missouri S&T

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.