Samantha Temple, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow in Community and Nonprofit Engagement, Humanitarian Engineering
Dr. Samantha Temple is a scholar-practitioner whose work bridges the fields of humanitarian engineering, nonprofit leadership, and community-led development. She currently serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Colorado School of Mines, where her teaching and research explore cultural humility in engineering education, power dynamics in development and humanitarian systems, and NGO partnership development to support student projects and applied learning.
With over a decade of field-based experience—primarily in East Africa—Dr. Temple brings deep applied insight to her academic work. Her recent co-authored publication, Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (Springer, 2024), investigates how engineers and communities can collaborate to advance more just and sustainable outcomes.
In addition to teaching and community outreach, Dr. Temple serves as Director of the Mines Peace Corps Prep program, where she mentors students seeking to apply their engineering skills through international service.
Dr. Temple holds a PhD and MPA in Public Affairs from the University of Colorado Denver, and a BA in International Relations from Knox College. She draws upon a wealth of lived experience—including two and a half years of Peace Corps service in Tanzania and a year in AmeriCorps—to guide her work as an educator, mentor, and development strategist.