Dr. Amy Nantkes

As a leader in the nonprofit sector for 20 years, Dr. Amy Nantkes is responsible for training and leading hundreds of volunteers that desire to positively change their communities through direct action. With professional experience in coordinating large-scale community events and developing curriculum for international NGOs, she understands the power of vision-infused education in organizing groups of people around a common purpose.

Dr. Nantkes has taken that experience into the higher education classroom as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Point Loma Nazarene University, also serving as Director of the B.A. in Public Administration program. She holds a BA in Cross Cultural Studies from North Central University, an MA in Social Entrepreneurship and Change from Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Nantkes is also a member of the leadership honor society Sigma Alpha Pi and was awarded the CGU Department of Politics and Economics Outstanding Student Award in 2017 as well as the CGU Dissertation Fellowship Award in 2020. In 2023, Dr. Nantkes was recognized by San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas with a District 1 SHEro Award for Education.

Dr. Nantkes' research interests include social welfare policy, inequality, and immigration policy, with an emphasis in efficacy-developing policies and sustainable reduction of poverty in the United States. Trained in quantitative and qualitative methods, Amy's recent work includes a Native American voting rights study included in the Sanchez v. Cegavske (2016) case as well as an analysis she co-authored on pervasive Anti-Asian Rhetoric during the COVID era and its consequences on society and policy. Her dissertation, entitled "Elite Rhetoric, Target Group Positioning, and Policymaking: Immigrant Women and Project 100% in San Diego County," applied Blumer’s (1958) Group Position Theory to investigate underlying racial bias existing in SD County at the intersection of anti-immigrant elite language that co-evolved with restrictive welfare reforms in the 1990s.

Dr. Nantkes is proud to call North San Diego County home. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring National Parks, stand-up paddleboarding, drinking iced coffee, running on the coast, and cheering for the San Diego Padres at baseball games with her family.