Brandy Ball Blake joined the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) on August 14, 2020 as the director of professional and technical communication.

In this role, Blake coaches ISyE students on writing, presentations, visual design, and data visualization. Working primarily with Senior and Cornerstone Design classes, she will also develop a communication program to help meet the needs of ISyE students and faculty. Additionally, she will advise and assist students with their scholarship and graduate fellowship applications, including those for the NSF Graduate Fellowship program.

Prior to assuming her current position, she was the director of the Institute’s Communication Center, where she worked extensively with students and professors across Georgia Tech, managed day-to-day operations of the center, developed initiatives to help STEM students improve communication, and created and led numerous workshops on communication skills.

Her research is on perceptions of engineers in culture and how they shape the way engineers communicate. In conjunction with this research, she teaches English classes on engineers in literature and culture. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. from Georgia State University, and a B.A. from Emory University.