Holding the degrees of Master of Science in electrical engineering and Master of Fine Arts in writing, Michael Alley is an associate professor of engineering communication at Penn State University. He is the author of three textbooks: The Craft of Scientific Presentations (2002), The Craft of Editing (2000), andThe Craft of Scientific Writing (1996). Over the past twenty years, he has taught technical writing and presentations to engineering and science students at Penn State, the University of Texas, the University of Wisconsin, and Virginia Tech. His professional communication workshops have been held across the United States and in Europe. Sites include Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, United Technologies, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, Simula Research Laboratory, the Institute for Energy Technology, the University of Barcelona, and the University of Oslo. Alley is the founder and lead editor for the popular web-siteWriting Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students, which has a half-million visitors each year and is the first Google listing for the topic of engineering writing. Alley will give the lectures in the workshop, and he will also be the principal instructor in one of the parallel tracks of critique sessions.

Melissa Marshall is a lecturer with the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences at Penn State University, where she has been teaching since 2004. She works with the College of Engineering to design and implement effective teaching methods of communication skills for engineering students. In 2007, at the request of the College of Engineering, Marshall co-developed, piloted, and was the lead instructor for a new presentation skills course that targeted the skills specifically necessary for engineering students to excel in technical presentations. The course was so well received that the administration has more than doubled the number of sections offered after just one pilot year. She also teaches speaking courses for returning adult students and professionals seeking degrees through Penn State Continuing Education. Her research interests include incorporating real-life speaking examples into the classroom and the effective design of visual aids for technical presentations. Marshall also collaborates with Michael Alley to teach a workshop entitled The Craft of Scientific Presentations. She has taught this workshop at the University of Illinois, Cornell University, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and Laval University (in Quebec). She holds a Master of Arts degree in Communication Arts & Sciences, as well as Bachelor of Arts degrees in Advertising/Public Relations, and Communication Arts & Sciences. Marshall has contributed to the design of the workshop, she gives lectures and she will be the principal instructor in one of the parallel tracks of critique sessions.

Are Magnus Bruaset holds a PhD in mathematical modeling from the University of Oslo. Since 2007, he has served as the assistant director of the Simula School of Research and Innovation. In addition, since late 2004, he has built up Simula’s research group in Computational Geosciences in close collaboration with StatoilHydro. He still leads this research group. Bruaset is also a professor at Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Through his teaching at the university and several years of industrial work with customers from a wide range of engineering fields, he has long experience with communication of scientific information. Bruaset initiated the contact between Simula and Michael Alley, and he has been responsible for implementing Alley’s courses at Simula. Bruaset contributes to the design of the workshop, and he will be the principal instructor in one of the parallel tracks of critique sessions.