Chad Shomura

Chad Shomura is a political theorist, educator, and artist based at the University of Colorado Denver, where he serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies. His work interrogates the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, coloniality, and materiality through political theory, queer theory, and American studies.

• Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
• B.A. & M.A., University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Research focuses on:

• Affect theory and biopolitics
• New materialisms and settler colonial critique
• Decolonial futurities and ecological thought

Publications span topics in political theory, Asian American studies, and environmental humanities, with recent works examining plastic pollution, climate justice, and queer survival strategies. Articles appear in journals like American Quarterly, Contemporary Political Theory, and Lateral.

Awarded both the CU Denver CLAS Research Excellence Award and Rosa Parks Diversity Award, Shomura bridges academia with public art projects like the Smithsonian-commissioned The Corner of Heart-to-Hearts and Message in a Plastic Bottle. He co-edited Political Theory journal and serves on editorial boards of Capacious and Journal of Posthumanism.