Geoffrey Sauer is a professor who researches and teaches seminars in technical communication, web development, content management, multimedia production and film theory. He is the director of the nonprofit electronic publishing venture EServer.org (which serves almost 600,000 hits per day), and is also the director of the ISU Studio for New Media.

While that may sound as if he wouldn’t have time for outside clients, that’s far from the truth. His students and colleagues sometimes tell him that they like his practical examples from industry, when he’s explaining concepts. He works diligently to connect theory and practice, and does this by collaborating often with people in industry and in nonprofit organizations, in order to follow emerging trends in the fields.

As a professor he’s on a nine-month salary, and so is available for significant new media projects three months every summer. And his university supports work year-round which it terms ‘professional practice,’ which means the use of his specialized expertise to support organizations—because that sort of work may also inform his research and teaching.