Divya McMillin, PhD
Associate Vice Chancellor For Innovation and Global Engagement
Dr. Divya McMillin (Ph.D. 1998, Indiana University Bloomington) is Professor of Global Media Studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, and founding Associate Vice Chancellor of the Institute for Innovation and Global Engagement at UW Tacoma. McMillin’s pivotal work on the impact of satellite television on audiences and the television format industry across the world have led to three critically acclaimed books: International Media Studies (Wiley, 2007), Mediated Identities: Youth, Agency, and Globalization (Peter Lang, 2009), and the anthology Place, Power, Media (Peter Lang, 2018).
Her participatory and grassroots, human centered methodologies in development communication and her analyses of global cities, soft power, and the social impact of convergence technologies, are widely published in top tiered journals and anthologies, meriting her Top Paper Awards from the International Communication Association, and marking her as a postcolonial scholar who has shaped the field of International Cultural Studies.
McMillin is recipient of the UW Distinguished Research Award (2012) and the Distinguished Teaching Award (2017). She serves on various international journal editorial and book publishing review boards, as well as the Tacoma Pierce County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and the Charles Wright Academy Board of Trustees.
Drew Bamford builds products and experiences at the intersection of human desires and bleeding edge technologies. Currently, Drew leads the global cross-functional team of researchers, designers and prototypers who craft the Prime Video experience that delivers entertainment to hundreds of millions of customers in over 200 territories around the world. Previously, Drew spent 15 years driving the transformation of HTC’s business from ODM to global smartphone brand to spatial computing brand by fostering a design and innovation culture.
Before joining HTC, Drew founded the user experience design practice at TEAGUE, a product design consultancy in Seattle, where he and his team designed interactive products for such varied clients as Microsoft, Panasonic, Palm, Nike, Starbucks, and Boeing. At Microsoft’s Hardware Design Group, Drew led the hardware/software interaction design for a wide range of consumer products, from children’s toys and game devices to wireless phones. Drew’s earlier experience includes pioneering remote collaboration work at IDEO and user interface design for an early tablet device at Silicon Graphics. At Stanford, Drew studied Product Design and Human-Computer Interaction design in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Drew serves on the board at Charles Wright Academy and is a co-chair of the community advisory board at the Institute for Innovation and Global Engagement, University of Washington Tacoma.
Drew Bamford
Head of UX Design & Research, Amazon Prime Video
Autumn Diaz, MA
Interim Assistant Director
Autumn Diaz is the Interim Assistant Director for the Institute for Innovation and Global Engagement. She graduated from UW Tacoma in 2018 with a Bachelor’s in Psychology and a Minor in Global Engagement through the Global Honors Program. After graduating, Autumn went on to work at UWT as the Interim Study Abroad Manager in the Office of Global Affairs and as the Administrative Coordinator for Faculty Assembly.
Autumn obtained her Master’s in Communication from UW Seattle in 2021. Her thesis focused on the re-design of a virtual postpartum depression intervention with Latina mothers. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the same department and a GSEE Presidential Fellow.
