Joy Schulz is a Teaching Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Joy holds a Ph.D. in the History of American Foreign Relations from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and a M.A. in International Relations from Creighton University. Her research focus includes U.S. foreign policy and comparative world politics in the Pacific region.

Joy has written three books: Daily Life in Colonial Hawai‘i (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2025), When Women Ruled the Pacific: Female Political Power in Nineteenth-century Hawai‘i and Tahiti (University of Nebraska Press, 2023), and Hawaiian by Birth: Missionary Children, Bicultural Identity, and U.S. Colonialism in the Pacific (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), which won the Western History Association’s award for best book on the history of the Pacific West in 2018.

Schulz has published numerous articles on Pacific politics and history in journals such as Diplomatic History (Oxford University Press), Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (Johns Hopkins Press), Pacific Historical Review (University of California), Journal of Pacific History (Taylor & Francis), Canadian Journal of History (University of Toronto), and Hawaiian Journal of History (Hawaiian Historical Society).

Joy also has worked in government as a speechwriter, press secretary, and legislative aide at the local, state, and federal levels. When she is not teaching, Joy likes to hike, read fiction, and spend time with her husband Marc and her two teenage daughters.