Abram Anders is the Associate Director of the Student Innovation Center and an Associate Professor of English at Iowa State University. He received his Ph.D. in English from Pennsylvania State University. He is a scholar of rhetoric and composition with research interests that include:

  • Academic innovation and student success
  • Business and professional communication
  • Communication and writing pedagogy
  • Generative artificial intelligence
  • Human-centered design

His current projects explore artificial intelligence and writing and the development of student innovation capacities. 

As an academic innovator, Dr. Anders led the redesign of first and second-year multimodal composition courses at Iowa State to integrate project-based learning pedagogy, benefiting over 5,200 students annually. The redesign resulted in statistically significant gains in student learning capacities and improvements in retention rates. He also led a human-centered design project to develop an inclusive peer mentoring program for graduate teaching assistants in English and writing studies, demonstrating a networked approach to academic professional development. Additionally, Dr. Anders has extensive experience in faculty development having designed and led a year-long teaching training program for graduate teaching assistants and a faculty community of practice and workshops for online learning. As an MBA instructor, consultant, and workshop facilitator, Dr. Anders has led leadership development, communication, and creative collaboration training sessions for professionals from organizations such as Allete, Inc., Hormel Foods, IBM, and Mayo Clinic.

His research has appeared in Computers & Education, International Journal of Business Communication, Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, Disability Studies Quarterly, and the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. The Association for Business Communication (ABC) has recognized Dr. Anders as an outstanding researcher and teacher by honoring him with the 2022 Outstanding Article in the International Journal of Business Communication Award, the 2016 Rising Star Award, and the 2014 Pearson Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. Dr. Anders has also served on the ABC board of directors as a Director-at-Large. He also received the 2023 Dean’s Arts and Humanities Innovation Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University.