Bio

About Dr. Vrooman:

Dr. Steven Vrooman (stevenvrooman.com), PhD, is Professor at Texas Lutheran University, where he is Chair of the Department of Communication, Culture, English & World Languages and Director of General Education.

His well-received TED Talk, "Our Brains Are A'Twitter," explored what social media reveals about the ways we have always processed and failed to process information. This built on 20 years of research and teaching in the field, ever since the Internet emerged from the computer-lab basements of BITNET and IRC. 


 

Select publications include:
He received his MA and PhD in Communication from Arizona State University, writing his thesis on a web-based social movement and his dissertation on emergent fan fiction communities. He did his undergraduate study at Loyola Marymount University, where his undergraduate senior thesis, on how community norms are enforced in an online horror fan community, was eventually published. He teaches public speaking, popular culture and film, research methods, communication technology, social media, rhetoric, persuasion, and data visualization.

He delivered keynotes and breakouts on social media strategy at INBOUND17, FABTECH, The National Association of College Auxiliary Services, the Texas Library Association, the IAEE Expo, the Texas Society of Association Executive, the California Society of Association Executives, the Texas Self Storage Association. 


He has spoken on and facilitated workshops on public speaking at Alcon, the Texas Masonry Council, and a variety of universities.




He has also spoken on internal and external communication at the the Association of Collegiate Conference and Events Coordinators - International, BCFS, the Texas Library Association, the Library Learning Cooperative, Libraries Out Loud, and a variety of universities. 


And he was the inaugural keynote at TLU's Engaging Pedagogy Conference.




He writes for the UDisc disc golf blog, and h
e has appeared in the documentary films The People Versus George Lucas and 3 Glimpses and the found footage zombie film Virus of the Dead.