Hi there! I'm Wilfredo Flores.
As a researcher, educator, and organizer, I think a lot about:
Technical & Professional Communication
Health & Medical Rhetorics
Community Empowerment
Scroll down to read a brief profile of who I am, what I research, what I teach and how, and a little about my work.
The mural shown here is "La Feria," located at the Mercado in San Antonio, TX, which is my hometown, and it was painted by Jessie Treviño, a prominent artist in SA. I have this mural here—I took this photo during a recent birthday trip to my hometown—because it reminds me of where I come from and the importance of centering community.
A Bit About Me
In the summer of 2021—fully vaccinated!—I will be finalizing my dissertation titled "OK Sexual Health Twitter": Toward an Online Community Health Literacy of Sex thanks to support from a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the College of Arts and Letters and MSU. I will also be working on other manuscripts, which you can read more about on my Research page. Beyond that, I'll be enjoying life as best I can amid a pandemic.
In my research, I specialize in cultural rhetorics, and I am particularly interested in digital rhetoric and health. My pedagogy also draws on cultural rhetorics, and I also primarily draw on my training and experiences with technical and professional writing. As a graduate instructor in the First-Year Writing Program at MSU, I teach WRA 101, our first-year writing course, with an inquiry- and research-based focus, adapting assignments and materials to student interests through popular culture. We have a lot of fun! You can read more about my teaching on my Teaching page.
Outside of my academic and professional work, I think a lot about bringing the university beyond the walls of the campus into local community. As an officer and now president of the Michigan Indígena / Chicanx Community Alliance, I have worked to bring together my university's mission to the very real need for culturally relevant programming and activism, working closely with Casa de Rosado, a Lansing-based Latinx art gallery and community space. I also take this approach as a founding member of and organizer in Queering Medicine, a grassroots coalition comprising MSU graduate and medical students and community organizers working to improve queer health in the Lansing, MI, area. As a former Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative Fellow, I worked with Nupoor Ranade to develop a podcast series related to the academic job market, deploying digital rhetorics as a praxical intervention for community need.
When I'm not doing any of the above things, you might find me at the gym, on a trail somewhere (though, as a South Texan, the cold in Michigan gets me down), reading some choice queer and/or science-fiction literature, or playing/streaming video games.
If you’d like to learn more about my research, collaborate on a project, learn about my teaching, or just connect, my contact information is below, so feel free to reach out. If you'd like a more hands-on approach and want to chat with me, please see my YouCanBookMe for my availability. Thank you for taking the time to check out my website!
Want to know what I'm listening to as I write this summer? Check this playlist out!
