Tom Keegan received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and joined the Rhetoric Department in 2011. Tom teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as honors and First-Year seminars (most recently, a course on the HBO series The Wire and another on public engagement).

In part, Tom's teaching and research address the use of digital humanities and publicly engaged pedagogies across a variety of curriculums. He studies and designs new pedagogical models that refashion writing and literary classrooms outside the institution’s physical bounds. With Matt Gilchrist, Tom co-directs the Iowa Digital Engagement and Learning (IDEAL) initiative which encourages assignment innovation and fosters expanded access to TILE learning spaces. Supported by a $74,000 grant from the UI’s Provost’s Office, IDEAL combines Tom's interests in spatial rhetoric and digital humanities.

Tom also studies spatial and phenomenological concerns in literature, particularly the works of James Joyce. His current book project, Drinking with James Joyce, examines the spatial poetics of Joyce’s pubs and how Joyce’s drinking and writing about drinking informed his view of everyday life.

In addition to his work in the Rhetoric Department, Tom serves as the Assistant to the Director of the Judith R. Frank Business Communications Center at the UI’s Tippie College of Business. In that capacity, Tom helps design and direct the "Business Communication and Protocol" curriculum.