Dr. Ruth Derksen

Senior Instructor Emerita

Structural Materials Engineering

Email: ruth.derksen@ubc.ca

Phone:

Biography

Dr. Ruth Derksen first joined the Department of Civil Engineering in 2004 after completing her PhD in the Philosophy of Language at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her academic activities have integrated socio-linguistics, rhetoric, discourse analysis and genre theory into professional communication curriculum. Courses are now embedded in various Applied Science departments. In the CIVL Department, she has also introduced curriculum specifically for engineering capstone design projects. Currently, she is an advisor in the MEL degree program, assisting students with their professional communication tasks.

Research Interests

Guiding graduate and undergraduate students in Applied Science with the language proficiencies, knowledge of rhetorical strategies and genre expectations of their profession; assisting students to succeed as professionals in both their scholarly writing and speaking; investigation of the gap between international students’ assumptions about success and an Applied Science professor’s measurement of that success.