Research - Areas of Interest

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Julie’s primary research is within the field of social sciences, examining the transformation of the field of adoption due to the Internet. Her other research interests include creativity (within arts, science, and the environment), open-source software, multi-platform design, narrative, digital life writing, HCI, wearable technologies, and technology as an assistive tool within the field of neurodiversity.


She continues to build up a wide network across a variety of disciplines. At the same time, she actively pursues opportunities to publish her work in both journals and book chapters. Julie welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with other academics, artists, and writers.


Research interests include

Julie is the author of  Adoption in the Digital Age: Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century 

(Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-319-70413-5)

Adoption in the Digital Age explores the transformation of adoption due to social and digital media technologies. The most prolific of these changes can be seen within contact arrangements, particularly those that are not managed by an intermediary between adopted minors and their biological kin. Within this shift, it becomes clear that this often-breached contact arrangement lends itself toward discussions about further openness within adoption.  At the same time, these technologies continue to document the way adopted individuals and their biological kin feel about themselves and each other. It is for these reasons that the Internet remains both a promise and a threat. Samuels explores this in detail, highlighting that what it means to be adopted continues to evolve in the context of networked media cultures.

Combining both theoretical discussions with the human experience of adoption, Adoption in the Digital Age will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology,  social work, and cultural studies, as well as practitioners working with adoptive families and other members of the adoption triad connected and disconnected by adoption.