Gina E. Miranda Samuels (she/her), PhD, MSW, is Professor of Social Work, Policy and Practice at the University of Chicago, and the director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. Gina is herself a transracial adoptee. Her scholarly interests include transracial adoption, mixed race and multiethnic identity formation, critical and interpretive research methods, and the development of relational, kinship, and cultural ties among young adults whose childhoods are shaped by displacements caused by foster care, adoption, and home loss. Gina's scholarship situates these lived experiences in a broader historical, cultural, theoretical and policy context to critically explore how personal identity and well-being are constrained and promoted by policy, practice, and by societal and personal constructions of kinship, family, race and belonging.