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Dr. Michelle A. Samura
Assistant Professor
- Education
- University of California, San Diego, Bachelor of Arts
University of California, Santa Barbara, Master of Arts
University of California, Santa Barbara, Ph.D.
- Biography
Michelle Samura joined the faculty of the College of Educational Studies in 2011. She primarily teaches in the Integrated Educational Studies (IES) Program and advises students in the community emphasis. Prior to joining Chapman, Dr. Samura served as the Academic Coordinator for the University of California Center for New Racial Studies and a Lecturer in UCSB’s Department of Asian American Studies. She also is a former public high school teacher and taught U.S. government, economics, and history in East Los Angeles.
Dr. Samura’s current research focuses on space and race, and she is engaged in two research projects. An extension of her dissertation research, the first project draws on archival research and visual methodology to offer an updated framework for thinking about and understanding what it means to be Asian American in the 21st Century, and to provide greater insight into the role of higher education in individual and collective racial transformations. Her second project draws on spatial approaches to examine university-community partnerships in Southern California. She currently is exploring the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of engaged scholarship, service-learning, and civic engagement approaches and mapping how various practices and programs under these banners are carried out.
Dr. Samura’s research and teaching have garnered a number of awards including selection as a semi-finalist for the 2011 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, recognition as one of the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity Emerging Diversity Scholars, and recipient of the University of California All Campus Consortium On Research for Diversity Dissertation Fellowship.
Scholarly Research Interests:
Dr. Samura’s research and teaching interests include: space and place, racial and ethnic studies, trans/formations of Asian American racial identities and communities, difference and diversity, campus climate, university-school-community collaborations, civic engagement, critical pedagogy, and visual methodology.
Recent Presentations:
Samura, M. (2012, April). Remaking Selves, Repositioning Selves: An Examination of Asian American College Students’ Efforts to “Belong.” Paper presented at the 2012 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Samura, M. (2012, April). Convergent Meanings of Race and Space: The Spatial Duality of Higher Education for Asian American Students. Paper presented at the 2012 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Neely, B. & Samura, M. (2012, March). Social Geographies of Race: Exploring the Intersections of Race and Space. Paper presented at the 2012 Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA.
Samura, M. (2011, September). Fits & Misfits When College Students Meet Campus Space: An Examination of How Students Work to “Belong.” Paper presented at the 2011 Emerging Scholars Conference, Orange, CA.
Samura, M. (2010, May). Using Visual Methods to Examine Asian American College Students’ Dilemmas of Space and Race. Paper presented at the 2010 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Denver, CO.
Samura, M. (2010, May). Asian American College Students Remaking Space and Remaking Race. Paper presented at the 2010 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Denver, CO.
Samura. M. (2009, April). Connecting race & space by examining how Asian American students navigate through physical & social spaces of higher education: A mixed methods investigation. Paper presented at the 2009 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA.
Samura. M. (2009, April). Re/Examining the model minority “from below.” Paper presented at the 2009 Association for Asian American Studies Conference, Honolulu, HI.Recent Publications:
Samura, M. (in press). Asian American college students. In X. Zhao (Ed.), Asian Americans: An
Encyclopedia of Social, Cultural, and Political Change. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
Neely, B. & Samura, M. (2011). Social geographies of race: Connecting race and space. Ethnic and Racial Studies 34(11).
Samura, M. (2011). Racial transformations in higher education: Emergent meanings of Asian American racial identities. In X. L. Rong & R. Endo (Eds.) Asian American Education: Identities, Racial Issues, and Languages. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.