Position Title
Lecturer
Before completing her PhD in English at UC Davis in 2022, Jessica built a career that combined teaching, curriculum design, entrepreneurship, and professional communication. Over more than 25 years, she has taught in a wide range of educational settings, designed curriculum, trained instructors, and facilitated workshops for learners of all ages. She owned and operated a small business and completed graduate training in entrepreneurship and business development through the UC Davis Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, experiences that continue to inform her approach to professional and workplace writing. She also taught graduate seminars in Germany, where international students examined the relationships among institutions, disciplines, professional and individual identities, and the production of knowledge.
Jessica has cultivated interdisciplinary scholarly interests spanning literature, rhetoric, science and technology studies, intellectual history, and writing pedagogy. Her research and teaching have often focused on the role of writing in helping individuals and organizations communicate across disciplinary and professional boundaries.
Since joining the UC Davis faculty as a Lecturer, Jessica has taught courses in the Writing Center, the English Department, and the University Writing Program. Her classes, which range from introductory academic writing to upper-division professional writing, emphasize rhetorical awareness, reflective practice, revision, and audience-centered communication. Drawing on both academic and professional experience, she helps students develop flexible writing strategies that can help them navigate academic, professional, and public contexts.
- Ph.D., English, Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies, UC Davis (2022)
- M.A., English Literature, Wright State University (2014)
- B.A., English, University of North Florida (2009)
- Business Writing (UWP 104A), Principles of Writing for Business Contexts
- Advanced Composition (UWP 101 / 101Y), Writing for Academic and Professional Contexts
- English Grammar (ENL 106 / LIN 106 / UWP 106), Major Grammatical Structures of English
- Past Courses:
- Topics in Literature (ENL 149), “Witches, Virgins, Mothers, and Other Assorted Monsters”
- Topics in 16th- and 17th-Century Literature (ENL 115), “Early Modern Ways of Knowing”
- Topics in 18th-Century Literature (ENL 123), “Wild and Wayward Women”
- Introductory Topics in Literature (ENL 40), “Liberty”
- Literatures in English I: Anglo-Saxon to 1700 (ENL 10A), “Authorship and Authority”
- Introduction to Literature (ENL 3) Literary analysis, analytical writing
- Writers’ Workshop (ENL 3A) Academic literacies; analytical writing support
- Introduction to Academic Literacies (UWP 1 / 1Y) Rhetorical analysis, analytical writing
- Chaucer, “Troilus” & Minor Poems (ENL 113A) – Teaching Assistant; Section Instructor
- Eighteenth-Century Literature (ENL 123) – Teaching Assistant; Section Instructor
- Writing Science (ENL 164 / STS 164) – Teaching Assistant
- Medieval Studies: The Early Middle Ages (MST 20A) – Teaching Assistant
- History of Science: The Scientific Revolution (HIS 136) – Reader
- Topics in 16th- and 17th-Century Literature (ENL 115), “Alchemy” – Reader
- Writing in the Health Sciences (UWP 104F) – Reader
- My current work examines the role of narrative and reflective writing in fostering learning and facilitating communication across academic, professional, and public contexts.
- My interests include narrative and authority, reflective and experiential writing, professional storytelling, rhetoric and audience engagement, writing pedagogy, and the use of narrative in leadership, organizational communication, and career development.
- My work is also informed by my training as a literary scholar; my research focused on literature and science in the early modern period, particularly the mechanisms by which narratives help shape authority, expertise, social identity, and the circulation
- “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Commonplace Book.” Jessica Gray & Bethany E. Qualls. Keats-Shelley Journal+. September, 2024.
- “Foreign Relations: Utopian Fictions and the Birth of Scientific Citizenship.” Cultures of Twenty-First Century Citizenship, edited by M. Banerjee and V. Evans. Transcript, 2023.
- “An Impossible Ideal: Motherhood in Eighteenth-Century Britain.” Criticism 58.3 (2017).