Randy Allen Harris

Randy Harris was born in the new hospital in Kitimat, BC, Canada, in 1956. After some time there, and some more time in Campbell River, BC, he spent an inexcusably long time moving around the continent, from university to university, getting an education. He attended the University of Lethbridge, in Southern Alberta, mostly studying philosophy. He transferred to Queen's University, in Southern Ontario, where he earned an Honours B.A. in English Literature. He went to Dalhousie University, in Halifax, where he earned an M.A. in English Literature, specializing in Henry Fielding. Next came the University of Alberta, where he earned an M.Sc. in Experimental Linguistics, specializing in aphasia. To round things off, he went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY, where he earned an M.Sc. in Technical Communication, specializing in graphics, and a Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric, specializing in scientific argumentation and Chomskyan linguistics. Whew.

Upon escaping university, he worked for several years at Bell-Northern Research, in Ottawa, but somehow ended up back in university: he now teaches linguistics, rhetoric, and communication design in the English department at the University of Waterloo. He also researches and writes about a range of things, most of which sound terribly pompous, but are really an awful lot of fun.