Maya Iming Richards

Maya earned a PhD in Literature from UC San Diego (UCSD) and an M.A. in English from Cal State University, Northridge (CSUN). She also holds a M.A. in Professional Writing and a B.A. in Humanities from the University of Southern California. Prior to teaching in LMU’s Core Curriculum program, Maya served as an instructor in freshman composition and rhetoric programs at UCSD, CSUN, and the University of Texas at Austin. Beyond the classroom, Maya mentored students from a diverse range of backgrounds as a writing tutor and co-edited the student journal at CSUN. As an educator, she is dedicated to fostering a culturally responsive and engaging learning environment that empowers students to cultivate their critical perspectives and become more effective communicators in their academic and professional endeavors.

Maya’s research focuses on 20th and 21st century multi-ethnic U.S. literature with an emphasis on Asian American and Pacific Islander literature, transpacific studies, and the environmental humanities. Her work has been published in academic journals and she has presented at several literary conferences. She is currently developing a book entitled The Multiple Urgencies of Climate Change: Empire, Capital, and the Environment, which explores how literature addresses the temporal axis of climate change in the transpacific.