Faculty

Profile

Sam Mejias (he/him) is Dean of the School of Art, Media and Technology, and Associate Professor of Social Justice and Community Engagement in the School of Design Strategies. His research focuses on young people, the arts, and learning, exploring how creativity, design, discourse and communication influence the promotion of learning, equity, and civic engagement in the lives of young people in formal and informal spaces. Sam is currently Principal Investigator on the Wallace Foundation-funded international research project Tracing the Enduring Effects of Community Arts Programs. 

Degrees Held

PhD, Human Rights Education, University College London

MA, International Educational Development, Columbia University Teachers College

BA, College of William and Mary

Recent Publications

Baldridge, B., Kirschner, B., DiGiacomo, D., Mejias, S., & Vasudevan, D. (2024). Out-of-School Time Programs in the United States in an Era of Racial Reckoning: Insights on Equity from Practitioners, Scholars, Policy Influencers, and Young People. Educational Researcher, 53(4), 201-212.

Halverson, E. R., Saplan, K., Mejias, S., & Martin, C. (2023). What We Learn About Learning From Out-of-School Time Arts Education. Review of Research in Education, 47(1), 360-404.

Bevan, B., Rosin, M., Mejias, S., Wong, J., & Choi, M. (2022). Food for thought: Immersive storyworlds as a way into scientific meaning-making. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 59(9), 1607-1650.

Mejias, S.,Thompson, N., Sedas, R. M., Rosin, M., Soep, E., Peppler, K., Roche, J., Wong, J., Hurley, M., Bell, P., & Bevan, B. (2021). The trouble with STEAM and why we use it anyway. Science Education, 105(2), 209-231.

Banaji, S. & Mejias, S. (2020). Youth Active Citizenship in Europe – Ethnographies of Participation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bevan, B., Mejias, S., Rosin, R. & Wong, J. (2020). The Main Course Was Mealworms: The epistemics of art and science in public engagement. Leonardo, 54(4), 456-461.