Dr. Rochester has been part of the Duck flock since 2012. After earning her doctorate in English from The University of Oregon in 2018, Dr. Rochester remained on campus to teach composition and literacy courses in the Composition Program and the School of Education. Since 2020, her work has focused on helping Family and Human Services students hone their writing and research skills. Dr. Rochester is also a prolific writer, frequently publishing popular pieces on space, climate chaos, and Earth science.

Ph.D., June 2018. English, University of Oregon

M.A., 2011. English, Arizona State University

B.S., 2007. Secondary Education, Lesley University

Space Writer, Screen Rant, 2022 – present

Rochester, Rachel. “Some California Faults May Have Longer Recurrence Intervals than Thought.” Temblor, 2022, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.279 Rochester, Rachel. “Colonize Mars: Pre-Colonial Pedagogies for Anti-Colonial Praxis.” Teaching Postcolonial Environmental Literature and Media, edited by Cajetan Nwabueze Iheka, The Modern Language Association of America, 2021, pp. 273-283.

Rochester, Rachel. “Speculative Diasporas: Hari Kunzru’s Historical Consciousness, the Rhetoric of Interplanetary Colonization, and the Locus-Colonial Novel.” New Directions in Diaspora Studies: Cultural and Literary Approaches, edited by Sarah Ilott, Ana Cristina Mendes, and Lucinda Newns, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, pp. 55-68.

Rochester, Rachel. “We’re Alive: The Resurrection of the Audio Drama in the Anthropocene.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 93, no. 3, 2014, pp. 361-381.

Dr. Rochester's research focuses on the rhetoric of climate chaos and interplanetary colonization.