Bio

Shawna Sheperd is a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at NC State University. Shawna is a dedicated educator and community practitioner, with a background in nonprofit leadership and public service. Her teaching integrates multimodal assignments, inclusive design, and care-based pedagogy to empower students to critically engage with real-world communication practices. Her research studies the intersections of digital media, public perception, and marginalized identities, with a focus on how rhetorical narratives of “risk” circulate in media and shape public understandings of parental fitness—particularly for disabled, trans, and formerly incarcerated individuals. Grounded in critical disability studies, reproductive justice rhetoric, and risk communication, her interdisciplinary research brings together rhetorical analysis and digital media methods to examine how language, affect, and platform infrastructures construct and constrain representations of marginalized embodiment.

Area(s) of Expertise

Narrative, Rhetoric, and Public Discourse
Writing Pedagogy and Applied Communication
Digital and Media Studies