Bio of a Professor

Samuel Miller was born in a small rural town in Somerset, Pennsylvania. The town itself resides in the Laurel Mountains in the southwestern area of the state. During the first eighteen years of his life, he would live his days yearning to go beyond the small town customs and traditions he was accustomed to and find “elbow room” in which his academic mind could flourish.

Growing up, Samuel wanted to do a number of different occupations including, radio announcer, television production, and education. He would first settle on enlisting in the military in order to pay for his future college tuition. Four years of travel around the world as a signal soldier granted him the opportunity to go to college. His education started at Slippery Rock University where he would earn his bachelors of science in communication. After a few years of struggling to land a job related to the communication field, Samuel pursued his Master’s degree at Georgia State University and followed that up with his Doctorate at the University of North Dakota. His academic focus in terms of research revolves around fandoms, interpersonal communication, pop culture, and gender studies. He is currently working on multiple research articles and planning on publishing his dissertation as a book.

In the fourteen years it took to earn this degree, Samuel held a number of interesting jobs, many of which had little to do with his education. During this time he was: a social worker, brick layer, computer lab assistant, Student Advisor, and Videographer. A number of these jobs were less than glamorous and as he worked his way through his graduate degrees. However, he finally settled into the career he was adamant for from the start, education. He is now a full time assistant professor at Lane College where he primarily teaches courses with emphasis on writing in the communication field.

Whenever Samuel is not in front of the classroom corrupting the youth with critical thinking, he is often seen around campus helping with the broadcasting students putting together productions for the Mass Communication department. Off campus and in his free time Samuel enjoys sewing, rollerblading, and video games to relax. As a way to stay productive Samuel enjoys sewing together plush animals as a way to  create something tangible, aside from the theory he researches. He regularly attends fan conventions and sells his plush products as well as host panels that discuss his research in fan studies.

When it comes to video games Samuel is an avid retro game collector. His library of games includes titles from twenty-six different consoles. These systems range from the early Magnavox Odyssey 2 to the latest Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch consoles. All of these consoles require games, which is why his current library exceeds nine hundred titles. He is usually playing a variety of different genres of games, but when it comes down to what his favorite title is, he would reply, The Legend of Zelda.

That is Samuel Miller’s life in a nutshell. There are many more stories he could tell you. The first thing he would recommend doing is looking around on his blog and read his articles and leave comments. He wants to extend the conversation out to others and dialogue with them.