Since childhood, Duane Roen has been interested in how people learn to write. Since his days as an undergraduate, he has been interested in how teachers can help students learn to write. His research interests have evolved throughout his career and he is now most interested in collaborative writing, audience, gender and written language, and professional development for graduate students. He loves to make connections among disciplines, which means that he can draw on many fields in his scholarship—rhetorical theory, composition theory, literary theory, linguistics, psychology, sociology, feminism, anthropology. Because his interest in collaborative writing is more than an abstraction, he has co-authored most of his 130 or so books, chapters, journal articles and conference papers. Collaborating with graduate students is especially exciting for him.

Professor Roen has been teaching online courses for the past half decade. He is currently working with colleagues to redesign the online delivery of first-year composition.

He is vice provost of the ASU Polytechnic campus; dean of the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts; dean of University College; and a professor of English at ASU.