During her sixteen years at Cal Poly Humboldt, Professor Vicky Sama served as the department chair and taught courses in Media Law, Ethics, Analyzing Mass Media Messages, War Reporting, Sports Journalism, Documentary, Video Production and Magazine Production. She served as the faculty adviser for the Journalism Club and was the long-time adviser of the award-winning student Osprey magazine. She retired from Cal Poly Humboldt in 2022.

She also taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder and at the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. Prior to her academic career, she was a journalist at Cable News Network where she was a producer, writer and copy editor. Much of her critical journalism work involved being a field producer in Latin America covering cocaine cartels, guerrilla wars and violent presidential elections.

Professor Sama's desire to educate the masses extends beyond the classroom. From 2020 to 2022, she was a regular co-host of the monthly public radio program "Signals and Noise," analyzing current issues in the media.

She earned her graduate degree at the University of Colorado and bachelor's degree from Montclair State College. In addition to being an academic, she continues her work as a freelance journalist, producing content for several outdoors magazines and other publications. Her favorite subject--cycling. You can always find her riding her bicycle, probably in the mud.