Author: Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick

KellyAnn Fitzpatrick is an Affiliated Researcher (and former Brittain Fellow) at Georgia Tech, where she formerly taught Technical Communication courses for Computer Science and Computational Media majors. She is also a full-time analyst at RedMonk, a developer-focused tech industry analyst firm, and has previously worked in the software industry as a QA analyst, test & release manager, and tech writer. To leverage the unique opportunity afforded by her simultaneous affiliations in academia and the tech industry, KellyAnn is authoring a series of articles focusing on the role of technical communication in both spaces. To foster cross-disciplinary and cross-industry access to the series, related articles will be co-published on TECHStyle and on KellyAnn’s RedMonk blog.

The Spring 2019 CS Junior Design Capstone Expo: a Recap and Interview with Amanda Girard and Alyshia Jackson

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This is the seventh part in a series on the intersections of technical communication in the tech industry and the academy. Read the series introduction here. Recently the College of Computing and the School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC) sponsored the Spring 2019 Computer Science Junior Design Capstone Expo…. Continue reading

On Teaching Computer Science: an Interview with Bob Waters

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Shot from the second floor of students beginning to set up table displays on the first floor at the Spring 2019 Expo.

This is the sixth part in a series on the intersections of technical communication in the tech industry and the academy. Read the series introduction here. As I have written about in an earlier post, many of Georgia Tech’s Computer Science and Computational Media majors are required to take our… Continue reading

From First Year Comp to Tech Comm (and Beyond): an Interview with Dori Coblentz

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Inside a studio a group of people in fencing attire stand around a lecturer who is describing a fencing technique.

This is the fifth part in a series on the intersections of technical communication in the tech industry and the academy. Read the series introduction here. As former Brittain Fellow Kate Holterhoff has detailed in this post on her move from teaching to software development (and as my own career… Continue reading

Public Tech Comm: Preparing Students for Tech Expos

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Rows of lunchboxes are lined up on a table. Each box has a label with the words "Junior Design Capstone Expo" and an image of two people trying virtual reality technology.

This is the fourth part in a series on the intersections of technical communication in the tech industry and the academy. Read the series introduction here. One of the more interesting aspects of the Computer Science Tech Comm Course sequence at Georgia Tech is how it evolves from semester to… Continue reading

On Conferences in Academia and the Tech Industry

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On stage at the Container Power Hour session at the 2018 AWS re:Invent conference. The session agenda is projected on a screen to the left; the session presenters are seated on stage to the right.

This is the third part in a series on the intersections of technical communication in the tech industry and the academy. Read the series introduction here. For me, January 2019 was bookended with conferences. I started the month (and year) with a trip to Chicago for the 2019 Modern Language… Continue reading

Georgia Tech’s CS Tech Comm & Junior Design Sequence

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This is the second part in a series on the intersections of technical communication in the tech industry and classroom. Read the series introduction here. One (but by no means the only) path to a career in software development is through an undergraduate degree in Computer Science (CS). For most… Continue reading

Intersections of Tech Comm in the Tech Industry and Classroom

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An intersection at night. Exposure techniques render passing cars as streams of light.

I was a Brittain Fellow at Georgia Tech from Fall 2016 until this past August, when I accepted a full time job at RedMonk, a developer-focused tech industry analyst firm. Because the job offer came in days before the Fall 2018 semester started, I had concerns about the timing: I… Continue reading

Debugging the Gender Gap: Questioning Stereotypes in the Tech Comm Classroom

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On Tuesday, March 14, Georgia Tech hosted a screening of the documentary CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap. The 2015 film, which played at various film festivals and tech events such as the 2015 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, examines the lack of gender diversity in the American software… Continue reading