Regina J Deil-Amen
Dr. Regina Deil-Amen is both a scholar of and strong advocate for college access. She is an expert in the sociology of education, higher education, and qualitative research methodologies and a proponent of collaborative, participatory, and mixed-methods research. Her research has centered on institutional processes at community colleges, as well as students’ transition into four-year colleges/universities with an emphasis on the most effective practices to engage students in ways that lead to improved success outcomes.
Dr. Deil-Amen has engaged in major studies of:
- How community college occupational programs and comparable two-year private career/technical colleges prepare students for the workforce, resulting in the co-authored book, After Admission: From College Access to College Success.
- The use of digital media spaces by community college students to build connections, navigate financial aid and other procedural hurdles, and create socio-academic integrative opportunities to enhance their success.
- The application of a unique and integrated research approach that combines the creativity of the humanities and the critical research skills of the social sciences with undergraduates at the University of Puerto Rico, who uncovered how Puerto Ricans cultivate hope using creative resistance.
More recently, Dr. Deil-Amen was the main Principal Investigator of the Pima-UAZ STEM Bridge Project, funded by a $4.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The project provided scholarships, mentoring, guidance, and programmatic support for 3 cohorts of nearly 100 of Pima Community College students with aspirations to transfer to University of Arizona to complete a bachelor’s degree in a STEM major (Science, Computer Technology, Engineering, or Math). The effort has had a 91% success rate.
In addition to her book Dr. Deil-Amen has authored nearly 70 publications, with a majority being articles in well-respected academic journals, including the Journal of Higher Education, Sociology of Education, Teachers College Record, and Education Sciences. She has also published multiple reports and policy briefs, served on a range of advisory and editorial boards and research review panels, and chaired 30 dissertations. Her work is highly regarded and has been cited over 5300 times.
Regina grew up in Staten Island, New York where she attended Catholic schools. She earned her bachelor’s degrees at Syracuse University as a first-generation college graduate and her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University in 2002 with a specialization in education. She is proud of her history as a faculty member at Penn State and then at the College of Education at University of Arizona since 2007, where Professor Deil-Amen served as the Director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education and Department Head of Educational Policy Studies and Practice from 2020 to 2023. In 2023 she moved into the position of Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, where she has been invested in supporting College of Education faculty, whose research and scholarship continue to creatively shape educational contexts and pedagogies that are effective and liberating for all students, improving classroom teaching and learning and informing K-12 and higher education policy and practice.