Susan Thomas

Susan Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. She serves as the Founding Director of the Writing Hub and the WRIT Program within the Department of Writing Studies. In these roles, she has pioneered innovative approaches to writing instruction and support across the faculty. Previously, Thomas was Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Teaching Development Director for Arts and Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, and Sydney College of the Arts. She has over sixteen years of experience as a Writing Program Administrator, demonstrating sustained leadership in higher education pedagogy.

Thomas's academic interests center on the histories and theories of rhetoric and writing, with additional expertise in autoethnography, biography, life writing, feminist and Indigenous rhetorics, professional communication, and feminist studies. She supervises postgraduate research in writing, rhetoric, professional communication, and feminist studies. Her work also addresses gender issues in Australian education, multimodal writing instruction, professionalization in rhetoric and composition, and the pedagogical applications of artificial intelligence, as evidenced by presentations such as "Aristotle meets AI: an authentic approach to co-writing with text generators" and "Girls' school uniforms should be sweaty, not sweet." Thomas has earned the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Initiative Award (2012) and was elected Vice-President of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in 2020. Notable publications include her co-edited book Nevertheless She Persisted: Women's Rhetorics of Trauma and Resistance in the Age of Trump (with Lisa Emerson), "The WAC-driven Writing Center: The Future of Writing Instruction in Australasia" (2019), and "Learning to write by writing to learn: How writing centres and creativity can transform academic writing instruction" (2021). She has contributed editorially to journals including Young Scholars in Writing and Across the Disciplines, and participated in public seminars and committee service enhancing writing studies.

Professional Email: susan.thomas@sydney.edu.au