Ty Christopher McNamee

Dr. Ty C. McNamee is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Higher Education at The University of Mississippi. Growing up as a gay, poor and working-class student on a farm/ranch in Wyoming greatly influenced Dr. McNamee's research interests. He uses critical, sociological, and anthropological lenses to conduct qualitative research on higher education access, success, and equity for rural students, particularly those from poor and working-class backgrounds and those who are queer, as well as college teaching and learning and faculty development at rural postsecondary institutions. For his dissertation, Dr. McNamee studied the cultural experiences of rural, poor and working-class students in higher education environments, for which he won the 2023-2024 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division J Dissertation of the Year. This and other research has been funded by national organizations, such as the ECMC Foundation, College Student Educators International (ACPA), the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education (NODA), and the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students. Such scholarship has been featured in The Journal of Higher Education, Peabody Journal of Education, New Directions for Student Services, and Journal of Education Human Resources and will be published in an upcoming book under contract through Routledge.

Dr. McNamee received his doctorate in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2022, his Master of Arts in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of Connecticut in 2015, and his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Wyoming in 2013. He also completed in 2022 a Graduate Teaching Certificate from Colorado State University.