Brad Henderson
Brad Henderson teaches engineering writing and science writing courses at UC Davis, as well as a freshman seminar on the psychology of drummers: rock, jazz, & blues.
Prior to serving on the faculty of the University Writing Program (UWP), Henderson gained over ten years of industry experience working as a design engineer for Parker-Hannifin Aerospace and technical education specialist for Hewlett-Packard Inkjet. He has also held lectureship positions with UC Irvine's and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's Colleges of Engineering.
Henderson recently completed a 5-year-long project developing and test teaching a new math-based writing system for engineers (and other STEM professionals). Highly applicable to global industry culture, the system uses the universal language of math to help both native and multilingual speakers of English improve and refine their workplace writing skills. His new book, A Math-Based Writing System: Sentence Algebra & Document Algorithms, just released from Springer Nature, presents the complete method. The book serves as principal text for Henderson's engineering writing classes at UC Davis, and also supports an experimental "STEM grammar" class, currently in development.
In addition to standard retail sales, UC Davis students, faculty, and staff can access free ebook copies of this title through the UC Davis Library's subscription to Springer eBooks (Springer Link).
Selected articles relevant to Henderson's teaching style include:
- "How Scientists Are Learning to Write," by Alexandra Ossola, The Atlantic online, 12.12.14 issue
- "A Math-Based System to Improve Engineering Writing Outcomes," by Brad Henderson, ASEE 2014
- "Doing Engineering in the School of Letters & Science," by Brad Henderson, ASEE 2013
- "Whiplash: The Cult of the Drummer," by Mick Brown, The Telegraph online, U.K., 14 Jan 2015
On-the-side, Henderson plays drums, practices yoga, and labors on a variety of creative projects--in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He is featured in Engineers Can Write by Tom Moran (IEEE Press © 2012)--as one of twelve "literary engineers" currently writing and publishing poetry and fiction in the United States. His most recent creative publications are the poetry ebook/pbook, The Blue Devil: poems (© 2015) and the ebook re-release of his Phi Kappa Phi award winning Drums: a Novel (© 1997, © 2010), which received a jacket endorsement from world-class drummer Matt Sorum (Guns N' Roses, The Cult, Velvet Revolver, and currently Deadland Ritual).
M.A. in Professional Writing (MPW/MFA), University of Southern California, Los Angeles
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, minor in English, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo