Samara Firebaugh

Samara L. Firebaugh is an American electrical engineer and academic administrator who serving as the academic dean and provost of the United States Naval Academy. She assumed the position in July 2023, after previously serving as associate provost for academic affairs. In February 2025, her administration drew national attention for issuing guidance restricting the use of specific terminology regarding race and gender in classroom materials to align with federal Executive Orders.

Education Firebaugh attended Princeton University, where she initially struggled academically during her first semester. She recovered to graduate magna cum laude in 1995 with a B.S. in electrical engineering, receiving a prize at graduation for being the most improved student in the department.

Firebaugh continued her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. She earned her M.S. in electrical engineering in 1997 with a thesis titled Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of Micro-Chemical Analysis Systems. Her doctoral thesis, Miniaturization and Integration of Photoacoustic Detection, was supervised by Martin A. Schmidt and read by Anantha P. Chandrakasan. Her teaching efforts were recognized with several awards, including the Raouf Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching in 2012 and the Class of 1951 Civilian Faculty Teaching Excellence Award in 2014. In 2017, she was elevated to the grade of senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The guidance instructed faculty to search their course materials for terms including diversity, minority, bias, representation, and oppression. The directive explicitly banned materials promoting critical race theory, intersectionality, privilege, and gender ideology, and instructed faculty to avoid asking students for their preferred pronouns. The Academy stated that Firebaugh's email was intended to provide detailed guidance to ensure alignment with federal Executive Orders.