Robert Irish is Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. After academic training in English, Professor Irish joined the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering in 1995 to lead a six-month pilot project called “Language Across the Curriculum” to integrate communication skills into existing Engineering courses.

Language Across the Curriculum evolved into the Engineering Communication Program (ECP), which stands as an international leader in integrating communication throughout an Engineering education. Along the way, he taught courses or modules of courses in every Engineering department and built curriculum in consultation with Engineering colleagues to shape a learning trajectory for students. His early work in building the program focused not only on written and oral communication but also logical reasoning, argument, and language development. This sophisticated foundation allowed the program to support language learners and also build broad communication skills in all students in the Faculty.

As the work developed, Professor Irish also spearheaded the development of new courses that integrated engineering subjects and communication, most notably ‘Praxis’ and ‘Engineering Strategies and Practice’ (ESP) at the first year, and departmental design and communication courses at upper years. Indeed, Professor Irish was on the team that created the initial plan for ESP, co-developed and taught two design and communication courses in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and worked as the lead communication instructor in Praxis from 2008 to 2023, making it a premier course in Engineering design and mentoring generations of students and instructors. Many of the ideas from these ambitious teaching collaborations became papers for the American Society for Engineering Education, the Canadian Engineering Education Association, the IEEE Professional Communications Society, and elsewhere.

Starting in 2008, Professor Irish pioneered a set of elective courses in communication, which developed into the Communication Certificate program and contribute to the Leadership program as well. He teaches Language and Power—a course that takes Engineering students into the world of Rhetoric.

Many lessons learned coalesced into two textbooks. The first, co-authored with ECP colleague Peter Eliot Weiss, was Engineering Communication: From Principles to Practice. It articulates principles to guide engineering communication, still shapes the curriculum here at UofT, and is still in use (in its 2nd edition) at schools across Canada and beyond. The second text, an affordable and concise reference for upper-level students and engineers in industry, is Writing in Engineering: A Brief Guide (Oxford).

In 2018, the formation of the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice gave Professor Irish (and ECP) a departmental home.

In 2019, Professor Irish was awarded the IEEE Professional Communication Society’s Ronald S. Blicq Award for Distinction in Technical Communication Education, recognizing how his work helped mainstream the practice of integrated communication instruction in engineering.

Over the past 10 years, Professor Irish’s interests have expanded to include teaching courses on the social impacts of technology which incorporate engineering ethics, sustainability, and equity. Such courses allow students to develop complementary skills that help them become better rounded engineering citizens and take responsibility for the implications of the work they do.

These courses have also led to his recent research interest in Care Ethics. This work has drawn together an international consortium with colleagues across four continents, most recently developing a project called the Caring Classroom Project, which is building a repository of lessons learned and approaches to teaching in ways that promote an ethic of Care. This work is being presented in Canada and Europe in 2026, with the hope of continuing to build the consortium and the shared knowledge.