Michelle Bae-Dimitriadis

MICHELLE BAE-DIMITRIADIS is an Associate Professor of Art Education at the School of Visual Arts within the College of Arts and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. Her work bridges art education, diasporic girlhood studies, and social justice advocacy.

Dr. Bae-Dimitriadis holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on U.S. Korean diasporic youth culture, refugee girlhood experiences, and community-based art practices. Notably, she collaborates with Karen tribe refugee girls to create GPS-based oral story archives addressing environmental and racial justice in Western New York.

Her interdisciplinary research integrates historic, socioeconomic, and geographical perspectives to explore Asian immigrant and refugee girlhood through art and media. Key themes include decolonizing pedagogy, land-based art practices, and critical counternarratives in social justice education.

Selected grants include the E.O. Smith Arts & Humanities Faculty Development Research Grant, Arts and Architecture Faculty Research Grant, and National Art Education Foundation Research Grant. Her work appears in journals such as Discourse: Cultural Politics in Education and Studies in Art Education, alongside co-edited volumes on girlhood and media studies.

Her current projects emphasize radical vulnerability in art education, land-based thinking in museums, and antiracist interventions in Asian American art practices. She advocates for civic participation through digital media and has pioneered community-based art initiatives with marginalized youth.