Barbara Citera earned her doctoral degree (magna cum laude) at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, where she studied Modern History, Medieval (Bavarian) History, American Studies and German as a Foreign Language. Her research and dissertation focused on the effects of World War I on the German-American communities in Greater New York. She received a stipend from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to support her teaching and outreach practicum in Seoul, Korea, which contributed greatly to her development as a global citizen, with a deep appreciation of different cultures and learning systems. She was also a researcher for the “American TV News on Germany 1989-1990” project of the Department of American Studies and Herbert Quandt Stiftung (BMW Foundation).
Dr. Citera joined the Department of German Studies in fall 2019. Previously she taught the German Language Maintenance Program for the Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Monmouth, and German and History at Brookdale Community College and Monmouth University in New Jersey. In August 2001 she joined the University of Arizona, teaching history at UA South in Sierra Vista. She immediately started to connect her students to local resources, established internships and experiential learning opportunities and brought the “Evolution of a Friendship - Selected Documents on German-American Relations” (Military History Research Institute, Potsdam, Germany, Library of Congress, the National Archives, Washington, DC) to the Sierra Vista campus. As PI of a collaborative Title V grant with Cochise College, Dr. Citera and her team increased the retention, the GPAs and degree attainment of UASouth’s Hispanic transfer students. As Division Chair and then Associate Dean, she continued to build bridges and partnerships with the community, community college partners and UA main campus, leading the charge to re-define the academic mission of the branch campus and name change to the College of Applied Sciences and Technology (CAST).
Dr. Citera won the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Community Outreach (2006), the Student’s Award for Excellence (2017), and is a Fellow of the University of Arizona’s Academic Leadership Institute (2012). In 2018 she was selected to participate in the DAAD: Germany Today Program: “Getting to know Germany’s Universities of Applied Sciences.”
Dr. Citera’s research interests include German-American Relations, German History, Culture and Education. Her passion has always been teaching. She has distinguished herself as a champion for minority and military-connected students, successfully mentoring many students, including three recent Provost Award winners.
In April 2020, Dr. Citera and Co-PI Dr. Michael Marks were awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for their Dialogues on the Experience of War: “Thunder of War – Winds of Return” project to develop a humanities curriculum and discussion program.