2026 Distinguished Service Award Winner: Dr. Sean Williams

Sean D. Williams, PhD, is Professor of User Experience in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University. Across three decades, his career in technical and professional communication has brought together teaching, scholarship, mentorship, program building, and service to the profession.

Williams has helped create and lead academic programs at three universities. At Clemson University, he co-chaired the committee that launched the PhD in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design and later served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Chair of the Department of English. He subsequently became founding Chair of the Department of Technical Communication and Information Design at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and, most recently, was founding Director of ASU’s School of Applied Professional Studies. At ASU, he was responsible for the Technical Writing and Communication program, including the comprehensive redesign of the program’s undergraduate and graduate curricula, and he helped to launch ASU’s User Experience program.

Service to the technical communication community has been a consistent thread throughout his work. Williams served as Vice President of the Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication from 2019–2023 and has contributed to the profession through external program reviews, editorial leadership, and service as a reviewer for universities and funding agencies. His recent scholarship on technical communication program administration—including the co-edited collection Where We Start: A Practical Guide to Technical Communication Program Administration—extends that commitment by sharing practical knowledge with colleagues responsible for building and sustaining programs.

His scholarship has also explored information and user experience design, entrepreneurship and social media, and environmental communication, including the edited collection Technical Communication for Environmental Action. He has chaired or served on more than 80 graduate committees and received the Society for Technical Communication’s Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication.

Learn more about the CPTSC Distinguished Service Award and past recipients on our DSA page.