Sara Doan

Sara Doan (she/her) is an assistant professor of experience architecture in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures Department at Michigan State University and is excessively cheerful about mortality data. In 2025, Sara was a Beinecke Library Fellow at Yale University, where she compiled 130 pages of notes about data visualizations that ACT UP and other LGBTQ+ activists made to share their expertise about HIV/AIDS. She is currently drafting her monograph, Visualizing Pandemics: A History of Data in Action, which explores the data visualizations that persuaded people to take action during epidemics—and those that failed.

Sara’s other research examines how expertise is framed and enacted through user experience design, such as instructor feedback on resumes and cover letters, misleading data visualizations about COVID-19, project management, audience co-creation in public service announcements, and the content strategy of Southeastern state health departments. Her work on data visualizations, preventive health behaviors, and feedback in technical communication courses has appeared in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and Business and Professional Communication Quarterly. Her areas of expertise include data visualizations and public health, COVID-19 data visualizations, vaccine hesitancy, disability rights, digital accessibility, and health in the context of homeschooling and Christian nationalism.