Debra J. Bolton, PhD

Debra J. Bolton, PhD, is the director of intercultural learning and academic success and a faculty member in the department of geography and geospatial sciences at Kansas State University. She plays a key role in fostering cross-cultural relationships, student advocacy, intercultural learning and other educational development aspects at the university.

Dr. Bolton’s research focuses on education, health, well-being, community integration and social networks. She targets systemic change to improve the university’s efforts to recruit and retain students, faculty and staff of historically excluded and other under-represented or “invisible” populations. Recently, she contributed a chapter on women in the African diaspora centered on displaced women in rural communities “finding a home.” A National Geographic Society Explorer, Dr. Bolton introduces geospatial analysis and geography to high school-aged females of color, a grossly underrepresented population in the geosciences and other STEM disciplines.

Dr. Bolton serves on the Board of Trustees of the Kansas Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. She also focuses her research on immigrant and refugee communities in the Midwest, studying the affects that forced migration has on the physical, emotional and financial well-being of families. Bolton identifies as Indigenous (Ohkay Owingeh/Dine/Ute), which greatly influences her interests in the financial well-being of people forced from their land and homes.