Sara Doan
She/Her
saracdoan.com/
sara-doan-53bb0749/
FacultyWriting, Rhetoric, and CulturesExperience ArchitectureRhetoric and WritingProfessional and Public Writing
Assistant Professor – Tenure System
Biography
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 additional 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.
Projects
Visualizing Pandemics: A History of Data in Action
Visualizing Pandemics uses archival research to trace a throughline of how the invention of germ theory lessened Victorian cholera epidemics, how a lack of scientific certainty drove the 1918 Influenza Epidemic, how LGBTQ+ activists’ warnings about HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s supported new conversations about communicating expertise, and how public trust was lost during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The chapters unveil a pattern of action which reveals that visual health messaging succeeds or fails based on how well their creators navigate credibility, risk and uncertainty, timing, emotional appeals, design strategies, and scientific paradigm shifts. Through a survey of data visualizations from each time period, these chapters demonstrate that while “science” and data have persuasive potential, data alone does not convince governments to take action or people to change their behaviors. The book concludes by advocating for approaches that can counter misinformation, increase the transparency of risk, and engage with accessible design—all in service of building public trust and actionable ways to navigate threats to individual and public health.
Media Mentions
How effective are public service announcements? Three scholars weigh in
The Conversation
November 8, 2023
In this article, I argue that to be fully effective, public service announcements need a strong call to action and material support for community involvement.
Awards and Honors
Beinecke Library Fellow
Yale University
2025
Conducted two weeks of archival research using Yale’s collections of materials for the 1918 Influenza Epidemic and HIV/AIDS.
Publications
Doan, S. Visualizing Pandemics: A History of Data in Action. Book proposal under review.
Doan, S., & Kennedy, C. (2023). “Remember to P.A.C.K. for Racially Inclusive Content Strategy: An Infographic and Call to Action.” The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, 6(2), Online only. https://doi.org/10.5744/rhm.2023.6013
Doan, S. (2021). Misrepresenting COVID-19: Lying with charts during the Second Golden Age of Data Design. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 35(1), 73-79. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1050651920958392