Hi, I'm Gayle Moran, I'm a lecturer in communication at the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership. My goal is to help our students grow into professional engineers who can communicate effectively in the workplace. I'm not an engineer myself, but I worked with many engineers over my long career. And I know the kinds of communication tasks they are expected to master in their jobs. At Fortune 500 companies, such as Electronic Data Systems, Alcatel, Nortel Networks and Xerox, I helped engineers clarify their ideas and then communicate those ideas to executives, to clients and to journalists. I coached them on their presentation skills and their technical and business writing. When they found out I was an English teacher, they often came to me to get help editing their work. I have a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. And I taught professional communication at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice before I came to the engineering school. In my spare time, I read, write, and travel. I visited many countries around the world and I enjoy learning about different cultures. I think that all engineers, no matter where they're from or what culture they embrace, have a lot in common. They bring a lot of focus and rigor to their research and their problem solving. That rigor includes communication. I believe what an engineering friend once told me, that engineers in general and engineering leaders in particular have to be exceptional communicators if they're going to make an impact on the world. I draw on experiences from my life and my career to bring you the information you need to learn how to communicate effectively in the engineering workplace.