The second installment of TAA Member Phil Wankat’s curation and commentary of the archival issues (1994 to 2010) of the The Academic Author, Bios, is now available. Articles include “And now, 50 books later, a bio of Mike Keedy, author of mathematics textbooks and the founder of TAA,” and “Cognitive Aspects of Writer’s Block,” and “Author Profile: Philip Zimbardo, Improving the human condition.”

Wankat selected articles that have information that is still valid today, and included commentary on each. We will be adding these articles to the TAA website over the next year. The articles are organized into 13 categories, including Authors Needed, Bios, Contracts and Legal Comments, Diversity, Managing and Planning, Money, Production, Publishing first book, Recognition and Rewards, Teaching, Textbook Scholarship and Textbooks in Promotion Cases, and Writing and Writer’s Block.

View Wankat’s curation and commentary of archival issues of The TAA Report (1987 to 1993).

After 47 years at Purdue University, Wankat retired as the Clifton L. Lovell Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and as Professor of Engineering Education in 2017. At Purdue he served as department head, Interim Director of Continuing Engineering Education, Interim Associate Dean of Engineering for Undergraduates, and Director of Undergraduate Degree Programs in Engineering Education. While at Purdue, he wrote eleven books on chemical engineering and engineering education. During the pandemic, he became bored and started writing the fifth edition of his textbook, Separation Process Engineering, which was published as his twelfth book by Pearson in 2023. He retired for the second time and has stopped writing books. Now that he has actually retired, Phil has more time to spend with his wife Dot and their new granddaughter. He also has more time but less energy to enjoy his hobbies of fishing, canoeing, and camping.