School of Engineering Professor Dr. Helen Grady Becomes First Two-Time Recipient of IEEE’s Schlesinger Award

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Dr. Helen Grady

MACON – Dr. Helen M. Grady, chair and professor of technical communication in Mercer University School of Engineering, recently received the Emily K. Schlesinger Award for Outstanding Service to the Professional Communication Society (PCS) from the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

The award, presented since 1995, is named in honor of Schlesinger, a longtime member and former president of PCS and senior member of IEEE. Dr. Grady is its first-ever two-time recipient, having previously received the award in 2006.

Dr. Grady is a senior member of IEEE and served on the IEEE PCS Board of Directors as chair of the editorial advisory board from 2005-2017. In this capacity, she managed the 2008, 2010 and 2015 searches for editor-in-chief of the Transactions on Professional Communication. For 10 years, she coordinated selection of Joenk Award recipients for best Transactions paper and served as vice-president of PCS for three years.

She also was instrumental in establishing the Wiley/IEEE Series on Professional Engineering Communication and hired its first editor in 2010.

Dr. Grady has played an active role in 12 PCS conferences, serving on program committees, as a technical reviewer, as proceedings co-chair, and as program chair and conference co-chair for the 2005 and 2015 conferences in Ireland.

She has taught more than 20 different undergraduate and graduate courses in technical communication and entry-level engineering since joining Mercer’s faculty in 1991. Her teaching and research interests include technical communication, collaborative learning, distance education, systematic instructional design, instructional technology and faculty development.

Dr. Grady has been recognized as a Society for Technical Communication (STC) Fellow and received both the STC’s Jay R. Gould Award for teaching excellence in technical communication and Mercer’s Vulcan Innovations in Teaching Award. She has also been a Georgia Governor’s Teaching Fellow.

Prior to coming to Mercer, she managed a 25-person technical publications organization for a Fortune 500 company in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

About Mercer University School of Engineering

Mercer University’s School of Engineering, founded in 1985, offers innovative and academically challenging programs that provide students with a comprehensive education, featuring a solid foundation in mathematics and sciences, a core engineering curriculum, a range of courses in engineering specialties and a strong emphasis on communication technologies. The School is consistently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top three master’s-degree-level engineering schools in the Southeast. Known for its breadth of instruction in its undergraduate program and its five-year joint bachelor’s and master’s degree program, the School combines technical education with hands-on laboratory experience. Mercer engineers can look forward to joining fellow alumni in companies such as Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, Lockheed Martin, Georgia Power, Siemens and Gulfstream Aerospace.