Kenneth S. Ball, Ph.D., P.E. was appointed Dean of the Volgenau School of Engineering in August 2012. He previously served as the L.S. Randolph Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech from 2004-12, overseeing rapid growth in the department with research expenditures increasing five-fold to approximately $20M, and with large increases in student enrollment. Prior to his appointment at Virginia Tech, he served for 15 years on the mechanical engineering faculty at The University of Texas at Austin, where he was the Temple Foundation Endowed Faculty Fellow in Engineering.
He is recognized internationally for his research in computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer. He has chaired three international conferences, is a past associate technical editor of the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, and has served on several other engineering journal editorial boards. He is very involved in engineering program assessment and accreditation activities, both in the U.S. and internationally, particularly in the Middle East. He is an ABET Program Evaluator and has participated in numerous conferences and workshops related to engineering education and program accreditation. In 2012, he was awarded the Edwin F. Church Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for "eminent service in increasing the value, importance, and attractiveness of mechanical engineering education."
As Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, Dr. Ball was responsible for managing a budget of nearly $30,000,000, and leading a group of 58 tenured or tenure track faculty members, 25 full-time staff members, 1,050 undergraduate students (not counting first-year students), over 300 graduate students (half of whom were Ph.D. students), and approximately 25 research faculty. During his tenure as department head, he hired 34 tenured or tenure track faculty at all ranks. Annual research expenditures in the department increased from $4,000,000 to over $20,000,000 under his leadership. The department improved its U.S. News & World Report rankings from 22nd to 14th for its graduate program and from 18th to 13th for its undergraduate program since 2004. The department has also enjoyed steady and significant growth in both its undergraduate and graduate student populations. Over the period 2010-12, approximately 25 Ph.D.s per year were graduated, which was a step increase over the previous ten-year average of approximately 10 Ph.D. graduates per year. One of the top three programs for BSME degrees awarded annually over the period 2007-12 (No. 1 in 2008), the department graduated over 300 BSMEs in the 2011-12 academic year. The department was designated a "University Exemplary Department" in 2010 by Virginia Tech for a five-year period for its leadership in developing international education programs. Dr. Ball was also instrumental in establishing new graduate degree programs in nuclear engineering (M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering), which are currently pending approval by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
At The University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Ball was the Coordinator of the Thermal Fluid Systems Area, Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee, and held the Temple Foundation Endowed Faculty Fellow in Engineering No. 5. He was also Chair of the Nuclear Reactor Committee. He received the Halliburton Foundation, Inc. Faculty Excellence Award in 1996, the College of Engineering Departmental Teaching Award in 1998, and was named a College of Engineering Dean's Fellow in 1999.
Dr. Ball is recognized internationally for his research in computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer, transport phenomena, turbulence and turbulence control, radiation heat transfer, and multimode heat transfer in turbulent flows with applications in manufacturing, materials processing, bioengineering, and nuclear systems. He has directed a broad array of research programs, ranging from fundamental studies of drag reduction in turbulent flows to applied studies of rapid thermal processing of semiconductors and the non-proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium and special nuclear materials. He has published more than 100 technical articles and reports, and given more than 80 technical presentations at conferences and workshops, including six invited keynote lectures. Dr. Ball has supervised 13 Ph.D. dissertations and 29 M.S. theses. He has obtained externally sponsored funding (excluding high-performance computing grants) in excess of $20M for projects and program development in mechanical engineering, including the thermal/fluid sciences and nuclear engineering. The estimated commercial value of his supercomputer grants is in excess of $10M. His funding has come from a variety of federal and state agencies and private industry, such as NASA, AFOSR, NSF (including a Young Investigator Award), NIST, NRC, DOE, SEMATECH, Inc., 3M Company, General Motors Company, and STP Nuclear Operating Company.
In addition to his research contributions, Dr. Ball has been active in promoting professionalism, leadership, and service in the engineering community. Since 2006, he has served as an invited panelist on seven panels at major conferences or workshops focused on faculty development, leadership development, strategic planning, increasing research funding and productivity, and also the future directions of research in the thermal fluid sciences. Dr. Ball has been chair or co-chair of three international conferences, is a past associate technical editor of the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, and has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, International Journal of Integrated Energy Systems, and Trends in Mechanical Engineering & Technology (TMET). He is a registered professional engineer in the State of Texas, and a member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), the American Physical Society (APS), an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Within ASME, Dr. Ball was elected to the leadership track of the Executive Committee of the Department Heads Forum, serving as Secretary and Vice-Chair elect. He has also served on numerous ASME technical committees.
Dr. Ball has earned degrees in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University and Drexel University, and was a post-doctoral research associate in applied mathematics at Brown University.
Andrea Bartoli is Drucie French Cumbie Chair and the Dean of The School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. He has been at S-CAR since 2007 and focuses primarily on Peacemaking and Genocide Prevention.
The Founding Director of Columbia University's Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR), a Senior Research Scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), a Teaching Fellow at Georgetown University, and at the University of Siena, Dr. Bartoli has taught in the U.S. since 1994. He chaired the Columbia University Seminar on Conflict Resolution. He is a member of the Dynamical Systems and Conflict Team and a Board member of Search for Common Ground.
Dr. Bartoli has been involved in many conflict resolution activities as a member of the Community of Sant'Egidio, and has published books and articles on violence, migrations, and conflict resolution. He was co-editor of Somalia, Rwanda and Beyond: The Role of International Media in Wars and International Crisis.
Dr. Bartoli served as Associate Director, Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University from 1992-99. He was a lecturer at the University of Rome-Tor Vergata, 1987-92, and director of the Center for the Study of Social Programs, 1986-92. He was president of Unita Sanitaria Locale 7, 1983-87 and a consultant to Consiglio Nazionale dell'Economia e del Lavoro, 1980-84.
An anthropologist from Rome, Dr. Bartoli completed his Italian dottorato di ricerca (Ph.D. equivalent) at the University of Milan and his laurea (BA-MA equivalent) at the University of Rome.
Elizabeth (Beth) Brock is Associate Vice President and Controller at George Mason University. She joined the University in 1993 in the role of Associate Controller and was promoted to Controller in 1995. In this capacity, she develops fiscal policy and oversees fiscal operations; oversees compliance with the Commonwealth's Agency Risk Management and Internal Control Standards; is responsible for meeting the Commonwealth's Higher Education Management Standards; oversees financial statement preparation; and is responsible for development and negotiation of the federal Facilities and Administrative Cost Proposal and Fringe Benefit Rate Agreement.
Prior to joining Mason in 1993, Ms. Brock was a Senior Manager in the national tax department of Ernst & Young, an international public accounting firm, where her focus for five years was tax-exempt organizations. She started with the firm in the Phoenix practice office before being selected to serve in the national office.
Ms. Brock earned her B.S. in Accounting from Northern Arizona University in 3.5 years with honors, and she holds a MS in taxation from Georgetown. A CPA, Ms. Brock passed the exam on the first sitting and holds licenses in Arizona and Virginia.
Zofia Burr is the founding dean of George Mason's Honors College, established July 2009. Programs within the Honors College include the University Scholars' Program, the office of Postgraduate Fellowships & Scholarships, the Honors Program in General Education, and the Honors College Living Learning Community. Dean Burr has been a member of Mason's English department faculty since 1992.
Under Dean Burr's leadership, the Honors College has tripled in size at the same time that there has been a rise in the academic profile of the entering class. In addition to taking a rigorous core curriculum, students in the Honors College serve the university community through partnerships with Mason's Learning Into Future Environments Program (MasonLIFE) and the Center for International Student Access (CISA); beyond the campus community, they serve the region in collaboration with Leadership Fairfax.
Her main areas of research and teaching interest are modern American poetry, research methods, disability studies, and pedagogy. She was among the winners of George Mason University's Teaching Excellence Award for 2004. She is the author of Of Women, Poetry, and Power: Strategies of Address in the Poetry of Dickinson, Miles, Brooks, Lorde, and Angelou (University of Illinois, 2002), and the editor of Set in Motion: Essays, Interviews, Dialogues, by A. R. Ammons (University of Michigan, 1996). Dean Burr's writing has appeared in a number of collaborative installations shown and performed in various venues, including Mobius gallery in Boston, Artemisia in Chicago, and Soho 20 Chelsea in NYC. She is currently at work on a non-fiction project based on the experience of caring for her mother after a brain injury, and for her father with dementia.
Before Dean Burr pursued graduate work in Literature and Creative Writing, she taught emotionally disturbed children in Oakland, California. She is currently the faculty sponsor for George Mason's chapter of Active Minds, a national organization focused on de-stigmatizing mental health issues on campus. She received her MFA and her Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Dr. Ángel Cabrera was named the sixth president of George Mason University effective July 2012. Mason is an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with global distinction in more than 200 academic fields. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., Mason provides its 33,000 students from 136 countries access to diverse cultural experiences and some of the most sought-after faculty, internships, and employers in the country. Named a top "Up-and-Coming University" by U.S. News & World Report and a "Best Value in Public Colleges" by Kiplinger's Personal Finance, George Mason University is a leading example of a modern, public research university.
Prior to joining George Mason University, Dr. Cabrera served as the 11th president of Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona from 2004 to 2012, being designated President Emeritus in April 2012. He was professor and dean of IE Business School in Madrid, Spain, between 1998 and 2004. Thunderbird is regarded as the world's leading graduate school of international management, and IE Business School has been ranked by the Financial Times among the top 10 business schools in the world. During the last decade, Dr. Cabrera pioneered efforts to educate women entrepreneurs in emerging markets and co-founded The Oath Project, an international initiative to establish a code of conduct for business leaders. In 2011 the Financial Times recognized him as one of the top 20 business school leaders in the world.
Dr. Cabrera's expertise in international business and higher education has been recognized by top international organizations. The World Economic Forum named him a "Global Leader for Tomorrow" in 2002 and a "Young Global Leader" in 2005. Two years later, the United Nations asked him to chair the international task force that developed the U.N.'s "Principles for Responsible Management Education." In 2008, the World Economic Forum appointed him chairman of the Global Agenda Council for promoting entrepreneurship, and The Aspen Institute named him a Henry Crown Fellow. In 2010, he was named topic leader for the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.
Dr. Cabrera is a frequent speaker at prestigious international forums, and he has written numerous papers in leading academic journals. His latest book, Being Global: How to Think, Act and Lead in a Transformed World, was published by Harvard Business Review. His views on global leadership, higher education, and corporate citizenship have been quoted by leading global media, including The Economist, Time, CNN, CNBC, El País, Forbes, the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. BusinessWeek honored him in 2004 as one of 25 "Stars of Europe."
Dr. Cabrera serves on the board of specialty retailer PetSmart. He also serves on the boards of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (Fulbright Scholar Program), ESSEC Business School, and the Iberoamerican Academy of Management and the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation in Madrid. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Future Trends Forum in Madrid, and he is the past chairman of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board.
A native of Spain, Cabrera holds BS and MS degrees in engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain's premier engineering university. He earned MS and PhD degrees in psychology and cognitive science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, which he attended as a Fulbright Scholar.
Thomas G. Calhoun was appointed as George Mason University's Vice President of Facilities in February 2006. In this capacity he is responsible for all planning, design, construction, and facilities management at all four of the university's Northern Virginia locations. For the year prior, he served as Director of Facilities Planning.
Prior to joining Mason, Mr. Calhoun served for 26 years as a Civil Engineer Corps Officer in the United States Navy. During his naval career he served two overseas tours with the Seabees, two construction management tours with the United States Marine Corps, and several construction management assignments in the Washington, DC and Seattle, Washington areas. He led planning efforts for the Navy in Naples, Italy, and for the Marine Corps in Washington, DC. He concluded his naval career as Commanding Officer of Engineering Field Activity, Washington, where he was responsible for all planning, environmental, design and construction for Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force installations in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. He retired with the rank of Captain in 2004.
Mr. Calhoun earned a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and a Master's Degree in Construction Management from Stanford University. He also attended the Executive Management Program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Mr. Calhoun lives in Fairfax, Virginia with his wife, the former Joy Audet of North Miami Florida, and their two children, Briana and Thomas.
A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Censer became the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University in 2006. After three years at the College of Charleston, Dr. Censer came to George Mason in 1977 as an assistant professor, and was promoted to full professor in 1987.
He served as the Chair of the Department of History & Art History from 1995-2006. He has given numerous guest lectures and regularly presents his work at national conferences. He has held visiting professor appointments at Cornell University and the University of Maryland.
Dr. Censer's research has examined the French Revolution, intellectual history, and the press. Previous publications include: Exploring the French Revolution; Visions and Revisions in Eighteenth-Century France; The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment; and The French Revolution and Intellectual History. Dean Censer's latest work, On the Trail of the DC Sniper: Fear and the Media, was published in March 2010 by the University of Virginia Press.
He earned his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University.
Vikas Chandhoke is the Dean of George Mason University's College of Science. Dean Chandhoke is involved in the development of medical and scientific research programs with molecular bioscience and informatics to exploit synergistic junctures of cutting-edge translational research. Current studies include genomics of liver diseases, obesity and metabolic disorders, and the development of a large-scale relational database integrating clinical and gene expression data.
Dean Chandhoke has received grants and contracts as the Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI in topics ranging from cancer genomics to instrumentation grants from various sources. He is the Co-Director of GMU-INOVA Translational Research Institute.
He has taught in biology and biosciences programs, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, where his interests were centered on recent advances made in biological sciences and technology to investigate complex problems in an integrated manner using the system biology approach.
Dean Chandhoke is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Human Genome Organization (HUGO).
He received his Ph.D. University of Maine, Orono, M.Sc. (Hons.) and B. Pharm. (Hons.) Birla Institute of Technology and Science, India.
Jennifer (J.J.) Davis was appointed the Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance for George Mason University in March of 2013. In this role she provides direction, oversight, and financial and operation management for Mason fiscal services; purchasing and accounts payable; budget and planning; campus police; auxiliary enterprises; transportation and parking services; human resources and payroll; facilities management, planning, financing and construction; and space management. J.J. brings a wealth of experience in budget planning, development and management vital to the continued growth and prosperity of the University.
Previously, Ms. Davis excelled as the Vice President for Finance and Administration at the University of Delaware, where she and her colleagues touched on nearly every aspect of the campus, from the redesign of the human resources, finance and payroll systems to revamping the compensation system to the demolition of the Chrysler facility (and establishment of the UDid It Picnic.)
Prior to joining the University of Delaware, she worked for the State of Delaware, serving from 1993 to 2008 in such capacities as budget director, deputy secretary of education, associate secretary of education for policy and administrative services, and lastly as the Cabinet Secretary-Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
J.J. Davis was named International Women's Forum Fellow in 2008. Additionally in 2008, she received the Delaware Quality Award for OMB, Council of State Governments Innovation Leader for OMB, and the National Association of State Personnel Officers Award for Healthcare Innovation & New Human Resource Recruitment System. She serves as a director of the WSFS Corporation, a Delaware-based bank.
Ms. Davis earned both her bachelor's degree in political science and her master's degree in policy analysis from Pennsylvania State University, through its integrated Undergraduate-Graduate Degree program.
Ms. Davis resides in Fairfax, Virginia with her husband and two children.
Charlene Douglas is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Coordinator of the Online RN to BSN program, and Coordinator for Community Health Nursing. Her specialty areas are cultural competence, community-based practice, and access to care.
A former White House Fellow, Dr. Douglas served as Special Assistant to Secretary Louis Sullivan at the Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS]. Part of that service was helping to launch the Healthy Start Program, aimed at decreasing the infant mortality rate in high-risk areas. She is currently on the Advisory Commission for Childhood Vaccines at DHHS, and the INOVA Home Health Professional Advisory Committee.
Her primary research interest has been in the area of quality of life for cancer survivors. She has published results for Hispanic and African American populations. She is a text reviewer for community content and serves as a grant reviewer for community programs aimed at reducing adolescent pregnancy. Her contributions to general education include work with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) on the writing component of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE).
Dr. Douglas received her BA and BSN from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, and her MPH and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She began her academic career at the University of Maryland and recently celebrated her 20th year at George Mason University. Dr. Douglas was tenured under Genuine Excellence in Teaching and has been awarded the University Teaching Excellence Award. She is Certified in Online Education, and Certified in Public Health [CPH].
Kimberly Eby joined George Mason University in 1996 as the first tenure-track faculty member in New Century College (NCC), Mason's undergraduate Integrative Studies program; she is also a faculty member in Women and Gender Studies and affiliate of the Department of Psychology. In 2002, Dr. Eby was awarded the George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award.
Her research and teaching interests are related to violence and gender and collaboration and community building in a variety of contexts, especially in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. She has co-edited an interdisciplinary reader on violence and gender and written about faculty roles in interdisciplinary collaborative work; collaborative learning; pedagogical strategies in teaching about controversial and sensitive issues; and responding to the needs of domestic violence survivors.
Since joining the Office of Provost in 2007, her role has been to provide programming, consultation, and professional development support to Mason faculty members and graduate students, with an emphasis on teaching and learning. Dr. Eby collaborates with other campus leaders on institution-wide curricular and leadership initiatives, including Mason's Students as Scholars initiative and the Leadership Legacy Program developed by MasonLEADS.
Dr. Eby was a consultant for the National Learning Communities Project and continues to present at national meetings and consult with individual institutions on topics such as leading institutional curricular change, developing interdisciplinary curricula, faculty collaboration, working with student and faculty diversity, and other issues.
She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Community Psychology from Michigan State University and her undergraduate degree from Indiana University.
Mark R. Ginsberg is the dean of the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University. Dr. Ginsberg's career spans more than a 30-year period as a professor, psychologist, and as a skilled administrator. He has published extensively in the areas of education, psychology, human development, and human services. In addition, he has lectured and presented at over 200 conferences, seminars, and other educational meetings and professional development events both within the United States and internationally.
Dr. Ginsberg served as the executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) from January 1999 until June 2010. Prior to joining NAEYC, Dr. Ginsberg was chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services in the Graduate Division of Education at The Johns Hopkins University and a member of the faculty of both the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine. Before joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Ginsberg held the position of executive director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy in Washington DC, from 1986-93. From 1981-86 he was a senior member of the management staff of the American Psychological Association.
He is the current past-president of the International Step by Step Association, a nongovernmental organization of 30 education-focused NGOs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He also is a past-president of the Society of Psychologists in Management, a fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Maryland Psychological Association, and a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Dr. Ginsberg completed his master's degree in 1978 and his doctoral degree in 1981 at The Pennsylvania State University, after having been awarded a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Cortland. He also completed a fellowship in clinical psychology at the Yale University School of Medicine. In 2006, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by the State University of New York.
He is married to Elaine A. Anderson, chair of the Department of Family Science at the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland. They have two grown children, Andrew and Robert.
Laura Gleason is the Associate Vice President of Campaign Programs at George Mason University. In this position, she oversees campaign communications, events, and donor relations. She has over 20 years of experience as a development and alumni affairs professional.
Prior to her joining Mason in January 2011, Ms. Gleason was Director of Donor Relations at the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum, where she participated in the successful launch and completion of a $311 million campaign to construct the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, Virginia. In addition to creating a donor relations program, Laura was responsible for securing over $40 million, including two transformational 8-figure gifts. Before joining the Smithsonian, she served as Director of Development for the Elliott School of International Affairs and the Columbian School of Arts and Sciences at the George Washington University, as well as Director of the Parent Fund. She launched her career in Development after working in Alumni Affairs at the University of Maryland at College Park.
Laura holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Jorge Haddock is the Dean of the School of Management. Prior to joining George Mason University, Dr. Haddock was the Dean of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond and Associate Dean and Professor in the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Under his leadership at the University of Richmond, BusinessWeek ranked the Robins School as 12th among undergraduate programs and 14th among part-time MBA programs.
His primary teaching interests include Operations Research, Production Planning and Information Technology courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His primary research interests involve the design and implementation of effective information technology, production and service systems, as well as their effect on corporate culture.
He has authored or co-authored over seventy publications, including his most recent book titled, Creating Global Business Leaders: Business Education at the Intersection of Innovation, Technology, and Globalization (Aspatore Books). His research has been funded by the U.S. and New York State Governments (NSF, NASA), Alcoa, GM, GE, and Kodak. Dr. Haddock has also been a consultant to several companies including Mackie Designs, CSX World Terminals, Peavey/Crest, Baxter, Citicorp, Citibank (Wall Street), Michelin, Jiffy Lube, and Cedel.
He has served in numerous national and international professional organizations. He received both the Outstanding Young IE Award and the Excellence for Minority Advancement Award from IIE, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty/Staff Award, the Darrin Counseling Award and RAA Teaching Award at Rensselaer, the Hispanic Educator of the Year Award in New York State and the Hispanic Education Award from the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Haddock is a co-inventor of the patent, Method of System for Providing Credit Support to Parties Associated with Derivative and Other Financial Transactions.
Dr. Haddock earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering from The University of Puerto Rico, his M.S in Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his Ph.D in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.
Linda Harber was named Associate Vice President for Human Resources & Payroll and Chief Human Resources Officer in September 2006.
Ms. Harber is responsible for HR and Payroll services and programs for all faculty and staff. This includes benefits, compensation and classification, employee relations, recruitment and retention, work/life, reward and recognition, training, payroll, HR operations, and onboarding. Additionally, she co-chairs the Quality of Work/Life Committee, Leadership Legacy Work Group, the Administrative/Professional Faculty Handbook Committee, and chairs the Investment Policy Committee and Benefits Committee.
Ms. Harber joined George Mason University in September 2003 as Assistant Vice President for HR & Payroll and CHRO. She came to Mason with twenty-five years of experience at Virginia Commonwealth University where she held a range of positions, serving as Executive Director of Human Resources for nine years before coming to Mason.
She has served on both the national and regional boards of directors for the College & University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR). Additionally, Ms. Harber served as Southern Region chair, and has presented sessions at both national and regional conferences over the past twenty years. She periodically presents on topics such as generational differences in the workforce, and bullying. She recently co-wrote a chapter for an upcoming Routledge book release, Workplace Bullying in Higher Education.
Ms. Harber was awarded the National Distinguished Service Award in 2005 for leadership and service to CUPA-HR, the CUPA-HR Southern Region Distinguished Service Award in 1998, and the CUPA-HR National Creativity Achievement Award in 1992. Under Linda's direction, HR & Payroll is receiving CUPA-HR's Innovation Award for its onboarding and orientation process.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Indiana University and her Master's degree from the University of Kansas. She and her husband Harlan have two grown sons, Adam and Joshua.
Since 1997, Joy Hughes has been Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at George Mason University and also a member of the faculty of the Volgenau School of Engineering. In addition to providing executive leadership for the IT organization, the university's libraries, and a television station that reaches over 700,000 homes, she assists the president in accomplishing his strategic initiatives, including talent recruitment, donor cultivation, and corporate relations.
She is also a Board member and university liaison for a 501-3C Washington DC cable corporation that has provided the University with over 7 million dollars in cash donations and an equivalent amount in in-kind contributions.
Dr. Hughes serves as executive director of 4-VA, a consortium of four Virginia universities that receives funding from the Virginia Legislature and the Cisco Corporation to utilize technology and collaboration to enhance efficiency.
Since 2009, Dr. Hughes has had executive responsibility for the Confucius Institute@Mason, a joint project of George Mason University, the Beijing Language and Culture University, and the Chinese Government. In December 2011, the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Education presented Dr. Hughes with a medal for Individual Performance Excellence.
Previous CIO positions held were at Oregon State University, University of New York-Potsdam, and the University of Charleston.
From 2006-09, Dr. Hughes chaired Microsoft's Higher Education Advisory Group. In 2008, she was named as one of the top 100 IT Leaders in the nation by Computerworld. In 2007, she was recognized by the Information Security Executives Association for outstanding national leadership. In 2006, she was recognized by the March of Dimes as a 'Heroine in Technology'. In 2009, 2006, 2002, and 2000, her unit was awarded the Virginia Governor's Award for Innovation in Technology. In 2001, her unit won the EDUCAUSE National Award for Systemic Progress in Teaching and Learning.
Dr. Hughes holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems, M.S. in Computer Science, and M.S. in Mathematics.
Mr. Jackson currently serves as Vice President of Compliance, Diversity and Ethics.
Prior to joining George Mason University, Mr. Jackson served as the Director for Diversity and Inclusion for three years at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Mr. Jackson was instrumental in developing the first diversity and inclusion department at the NCAA. His work in that department focused on developing and implementing strategies, policies and programs that will facilitate a diverse and inclusive environment in intercollegiate athletics. At the NCAA, He also served for three years as an Assistant Director of Student-Athlete Reinstatement where he issued disciplinary decisions and argued appeals at administrative hearings regarding the athletic eligibility for student-athletes who violated NCAA legislation.
Mr. Jackson came to the NCAA from Washington, DC where he was employed as Legislative Counsel for a member of the United States House of Representatives. He also served as a contract attorney in the antitrust department at a law firm in Washington.
Mr. Jackson earned his undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech University and his law degree from the University of Miami School of Law. He is originally from Houston, Texas and is on the board of the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance For Minority Participation and a member of the Maryland Bar; National Association of College and University Attorneys; American Association for Affirmative Action; Maryland State Bar Association; American Bar Association; and, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Jim Laychak was appointed Associate Vice President of University Development & Alumni Affairs in October 2012.
Mr. Laychak served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Center City Public Charter Schools (CCPCS), from December 2010 until October 2012. As COO, he was in charge of the day to day operations of a $25 million organization with over 200 employees who were responsible for the education of 1,400 students across six campuses. Prior to joining CCPCS he served for more than twenty-five years at Accenture, a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company where he retired as a senior director in 2009.
Mr. Laychak's extensive fundraising experience was gained while serving as the president and chairman of the Pentagon Memorial Fund. He led and managed the effort to raise $30 million in support of the memorial project dedicated to those who died during the Pentagon attack on September 11, 2001. Mr. Laychak, whose brother, David, was lost in the attack, spent almost four years working full time to raise funds for the memorial. He was named one of Washingtonian Magazine's 2008 "Washingtonians of the Year" in recognition of his service, as well as Fox News Sunday's "Power Player of the Week" in September 2006 and September 2008.
Active in his local community, he still serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pentagon Memorial Fund and is a member of The Old Guard Monument Foundation Advisory Council.
He graduated from Mason, in 1983, with a Bachelor of Science in Decision Science and Accounting. He is a distinguished alumnus and former Mason Alumni Association President, serving 2000-02, and the recipient of the Mason Alumni Service Award in 2006. Mr. Laychak is a former member of the George Mason University Foundation's Board of Trustees.
Paul Liberty was appointed Vice President for Government and Community Relations in October 2012, reporting directly to President Ángel Cabrera. As Vice President, he oversees a team working with federal, state, and local governments as well as the business and civic communities. He leads several major university-wide initiatives and is a member of the university's Executive Council and President's Council. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Liberty served as Interim Vice President for University Relations, responsible for managing community relations, creative services, events management, media and public relations, university information, and web communications.
Mr. Liberty brings over 25 years of experience to Mason in leadership roles developing and executing wide ranging strategic plans for customers, employees, investors, and partners. Prior to joining Mason, he was an executive for two publicly traded companies and a merger and acquisition advisory firm overseeing internal and external communications, corporate affairs, investor relations, legislative affairs, marketing and public relations. In addition to his corporate activities, Mr. Liberty worked on Capitol Hill for then Congressman John Kasich, now Governor of Ohio, served in the White House under President George H.W. Bush and at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for Secretary Jack Kemp. Mr. Liberty also has managed policy and legislative functions for a large business association and was chief of staff for an elected member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
Mr. Liberty has been active in a number of business, civic, and charitable organizations including: Fairfax County Information Technology Advisory Committee, Celebrate Fairfax, Small Business Resource Partnership, Fairfax County Advisory Citizens Reapportionment Committee, Northern Virginia Technology Council, The International Children's Festival, Virginia Public Access Project, Leadership Fairfax, Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, and Catholic Charities. He has also been appointed by state and local elected officials to task forces and study committees.
Mr. Liberty received his BA in English from George Mason University.
Michelle A. Marks is the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at George Mason University. In this capacity, she is responsible for campus-wide administrative leadership and coordination of academic programs, advising, planning, assessment, and accreditation. She is also an Associate Professor of Management in Mason's School of Management.
Dr. Marks has spent her career studying leadership development and teamwork in organizations. She has published theoretical models and empirical studies that illustrate the dynamic nature of the collaborative processes used by organizational teams and the critical roles of team leaders.
Dr. Marks has authored and delivered more than 75 peer review journal articles and national conference research presentations. In 2006, Dr. Marks won the George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award, and in 2008 and 2011 she won the Executive MBA Professor of the Year award. She teaches courses in organizational behavior, leadership, global business and human resource management in executive, MBA and undergraduate programs. She has led Mason graduate student short-term study abroad courses to the United Arab Emirates, China, Japan, France, Hungary, Austria, England, and the Czech Republic, where students study global business and cross-cultural adaptability.
She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Dr. Marks earned her undergraduate degree from James Madison University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from George Mason University.
Tom Moncure was named as University Counsel for George Mason University by Attorney General Judith Williams Jadgmann in January of 2006. Prior to this appointment, he had served as Senior Counsel to two Attorneys General with the primary responsibility of managing Special (outside) Counsel throughout the Commonwealth. Additional duties as Senior Counsel involved the active representation of several state agencies - to include one educational institution - and the drafting of official legal opinions. He served as the Attorney General's designee on the Virginia Military Advisory Council and the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council.
Admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1979, he began his legal career as a general trial practitioner in courts of the Commonwealth. He was also appointed by the Circuit Judges as Assistant Commissioner of Accounts with the responsibility for auditing and approving fiduciary reports. Additionally, he was appointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia to serve on Medical Malpractice Review Panels. Other significant legal experience includes employment as Assistant General Counsel for the National Rifle Association and election as Clerk of the Circuit Court for the County of Stafford. Legal publications include two law review articles and book reviews for The Virginia Lawyer.
Mr. Moncure is a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates where he served on the Courts of Justice Committee. He is currently in his third term as appointee of the Speaker of the House to the Virginia Code Commission.
He is a retired career Military Police Officer in the Army National Guard and Army Reserves, following 26 years of commissioned service. Significant duty assignments were as Division Provost Marshal, Operations Officer (S-3), Physical Security Officer, Administrative Officer (S-1), and Company Commander. Decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal and the Army Commendation Medal. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Military Police Officer Basic and Advanced Courses.
Mr. Moncure received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the Virginia Military Institute and Master of Arts degree in History from George Mason University. He took and passed the Bar under the auspices of the Virginia Law Reader Program.
Janette Muir is the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education at George Mason University. She began as the Basic Course Director in the Communication Department over twenty years ago, involved with general education for nine years before moving on to New Century College to serve as unit leader for a first-year course integrating science, math and communication. Then she served as Associate Dean for New Century College.
Her most recent work was as team leader for a freshman learning community in the NCC Cornerstones program integrating social science and information/communication technology to teach students about community-based research. In addition to her work in New Century College, Dr. Muir is an affiliate of the Women and Gender Studies Program, the Higher Education Program, and the Center for Consciousness and Transformation - all interdisciplinary programs at Mason.
Dr. Muir's academic life focuses in the areas of political communication, civic engagement and the study of the presidency (from campaigns to spouses). For the last few presidential elections she has taken a class to New Hampshire to observe, first hand, the primary process in action. Working with University Life, she has helped lead efforts engaging students in political participation on campus. She is an editor of the volume Readings in Political Communication, and was featured in a Harvard International Review symposium, writing about media, politics and citizen participation. She also recently completed and edited a volume honoring the life of Jane Blankenship, a leading rhetorical critic of the 20th century, published in the political communication series of Lexington Books.
Committed to teaching excellence, Dr. Muir has been nationally recognized for the quality of her teaching, winning the Donald Eckroyd and Caroline Drummond Eckroyd Distinguished Teaching Award, and the George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award. She was named a Teaching Fellow for the Eastern Communication Association, and awarded a C-SPAN Fellow for her educational involvement with the cable network. She has been named a Centennial Scholar in the Communication discipline. She is past president of the Eastern Communication Association, and past editor of Communication Quarterly, a top-tier journal in the Communication discipline. Dr. Muir served on Mason's Faculty Senate for five years in the position of Academic Policies Chair, and she served as an elected faculty representative to the Board of Visitors for four years.
Dr. Muir's Ph.D is from the University of Massachusetts in the area of rhetoric and political communication. She also has degrees from Wake Forest University (MA, Communication) and Palm Beach Atlantic University (BS, Double major in Behavioral Science and Communication Arts). Her husband, Star Muir, is an associate professor at Mason in the Communication Department. They live in Manassas, Virginia with their two teenagers, Caitlin and Alex.
Frank Neville is Chief of Staff at George Mason University. In this capacity he supports the President in pursuing the University's strategic objectives.
Prior to joining Mason in June, 2012, Mr. Neville was Vice President of Global Communications and Public Affairs at Thunderbird School of Global Management, the world's top-ranked school of international business. At Thunderbird, Mr. Neville was responsible for the school's global reputation and rankings while at the same time overseeing the school's advisory boards and managing a diverse global outreach and business development portfolio.
Prior to joining Thunderbird in 2004, Mr. Neville was a career diplomat with the United States Department of State. An accomplished foreign policy advocate, he has appeared on Nightline, The Today Show, 20/20, CNBC, CNN, BBC World Service and hundreds of other television programs in defense of U.S. policies. An experienced public speaker and debater, he has given numerous public presentations in Chinese, Spanish, and English to audiences throughout Asia, Latin America, and the U.S. While at the State Department, he achieved the highest levels of proficiency possible for a non-native speaker in Spanish and Mandarin.
During his 15 years in the State Department, Mr. Neville served in Taipei, Chengdu, Guatemala City, and Beijing. While in Taipei, he served as spokesperson for the unofficial U.S. mission to Taiwan. In Chengdu, he directed U.S. public diplomacy in a district of 190 million people that included Tibet. He served as Spokesperson and Press Office Director at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala, where he was deeply involved in U.S. law enforcement activities including counter-terrorism, anti-narcotics, and immigration. While in Beijing, he helped design and execute U.S. public affairs strategy during the 2001 EP-3 hostage crisis and led the public defense of U.S. policy toward Iraq in preparation for U.S. military action in 2003. At the time of his resignation from the Department of State, Mr. Neville was the Foreign Service's most decorated officer under 40 years of age.
In addition to his service at the State Department, Mr. Neville also worked in the Secretary of Defense's Office of Chinese Affairs and served on a Pearson Fellowship, first with the City of Nogales, Arizona and then in the Office of the Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano.
Mr. Neville holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Carleton College.
Sarah E. Nutter is currently serving as the Presidential Fellow at George Mason University. She is a Professor in Mason's School of Management, where she was the Accounting Area Chair. She also is a Senior Scholar at Mercatus Center. Prior to her faculty appointment at George Mason, Dr. Nutter was an economist at the Internal Revenue Service and a faculty member at the University of Maryland-Overseas Division in Germany. She earned her undergraduate degree from Ferris State University and her MBA and PhD from Michigan State University.
Dr. Nutter teaches courses in accounting and taxation in the undergraduate, MBA, and Executive MBA programs. She has received several teaching awards for Outstanding Faculty Member from George Mason's Executive MBA Program. She has developed executive education courses for numerous governmental agencies and companies, including Oracle Corporation, General Dynamics, Time Warner, Sallie Mae, and Lee Technologies. She has led global residencies for graduate students to Singapore, Vietnam, China, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
Dr. Nutter's research is focused on understanding how incentives and institutional/individual differences affect business and individual behavior. Her research focuses primarily on the impact of taxes and tax structures on individuals and businesses. She has published over thirty articles that have appeared in the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Journal of the American Taxation Association, Advances in Taxation, and the Statistics of Income Bulletin.
Dr. Nutter currently serves on the AACSB Accounting Accreditation Committee, as president-elect with the Accounting Program Leadership Group of the American Accounting Association, and on the board of the Virginia Society of CPAs Educational Foundation.
Tom O'Connor is in his 17th year at George Mason University and his fourth decade in NCAA Division I athletics. He was named the athletic director at Mason on November 1, 1994, and he is widely regarded as an innovative, conscientious, and visionary administrator whose bold leadership has advanced four Division I institutions.
At the NCAA level, Mr. O'Connor completed his five-year term (2004-09) on the 10-member NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Committee and served as Chair for the 2007-08 year. Mr. O'Connor was the first representative in Colonial Athletic Association's history to be appointed to the committee, which has control, direction and supervision of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. He has held a seat on the prestigious Management Council and was a member of the Division I Strategic Planning Committee and the Selection Review Committee. He was involved with the NCAA restructuring process as a member of the business/finance cabinet and served a term as a member of the NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee. He has been a member of the Executive Council of the NACDA Division I-AAA Athletic Directors Association. He completed a two-year term as the President of the Colonial Athletic Association on July 1, 2004.
Mr. O'Connor was selected as the recipient of the 2010 Gary Cunningham Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the DI-AAA Athletics Directors Association. He is a member of the Assumption College Athletic Hall of Fame and was honored as the recipient of the 2008 Father Louis Dion A.A. '35 Outstanding Achievement Award. He was named 2007 Southeast Division AstroTurf AD of the Year (NACDA) and was inducted into the 2007 class at the Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame. He received the Pathfinder Award at the 2004 New England Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
A native of Union City, NJ, Mr. O'Connor earned a B.A. degree in 1968 from Assumption (Mass) College, where he was a four-year basketball letter-winner.
James Olds has been the Director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University since 1988. Concurrently, Dr. Olds is the Krasnow University Professor of Molecular Neuroscience and serves as chair of the Department of Molecular Neuroscience at Krasnow.
Dr. Olds trained as a post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology (LMCN), NINDS at the National Institutes of Health. Laboratory Chiefs of LMCN included, among others then, Dr. J. Craig Venter and Dr. Daniel L. Alkon. In 1994 Dr. Olds was appointed as a senior staff fellow in the newly formed Laboratory of Adaptive Systems (LAS), NINDS.
After three years in the nonprofit sector as Executive Director of the American Association of Anatomists, Dr. Olds accepted his current position with Mason. He has an additional academic faculty appointment in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.
Dr. Olds is affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, the oldest such institution in the United States. He was elected a member of the MBL Corporation in 1991. In a volunteer capacity, Dr. Olds has served on many professional and governmental bodies including serving a three-year term on the Board of Directors of Americans for Medical Progress, where he was treasurer. He is currently serving as chair of the Sandia National Laboratories' Cognitive Sciences Review Board and on Sandia's Computer Science Board.
Dr. Olds has been invited to speak nationally and internationally on topics ranging from the International Decade of the Mind Project to the ethical, legal and social issues embedded in neurotechnology. His blog, Advanced Studies, has covered these issues and others at length over the past six years.
In 2009, Dr. Olds was re-appointed to a five-year term as editor-in-chief of The Biological Bulletin, one of this country's oldest peer reviewed journals.
James L. Olds received his bachelor's of art degree in Chemistry from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in neurosciences from the University of Michigan.
Rose Pascarell is Vice President for University Life at George Mason. She has held several leadership positions in the university as Associate Vice President for University Life, Associate Dean for Campus Life, and Associate Director of the Women's Studies Research and Resource Center. Ms. Pascarell's leadership work in University Life has focused on increasing student engagement and academic success, and the building of just communities.
Ms. Pascarell has worked on campus climate and multicultural/diversity issues for the last fifteen years. Her teaching and workshops focus on race, class, gender, sexuality, and the formation of just community through the examination of difference.
Ms. Pascarell earned a B.A. in Sociology, Criminology, and Conflict Analysis at the State University of New York at Albany. Her M.A. in Sociology is from George Mason.
Dan Polsby is Dean of the George Mason University School of Law.
Polsby was law clerk to the late Harold Leventhal of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was an associate of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering from 1972-74 and counsel to Commissioner Glen O. Robinson at the Federal Communications Commission from 1974-76.
Polsby joined the Northwestern University law faculty in 1976, where he remained until 1999 when he came to Mason as Professor of Law and Associate Dean of the law school. From 1990-99, Polsby held the Kirkland & Ellis chair in law at Northwestern. He has also held visiting appointments at Cornell Law School, the University of Michigan School of Law, and the University of Southern California School of Law.
Torts, Criminal Law and Family Law are among the numerous subjects that Polsby has taught through his law school career. His scholarship on criminal law and criminology, family law and the constitutional law of federal elections is widely cited.
He received a B.A. in English from Oakland University and was graduated magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School.
Thomas Prohaska has more than 30 years' experience in gerontological public health research, education, and practice. Prior to joining George Mason University, Dr. Prohaska was a professor of Public Health at the School of Public Health and Co-Director of the Center for Research on Health and Aging at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
He has been the principal investigator of federally funded research studies and co-investigator on many others and has over one hundred publications and government documents in gerontological health and behavioral health risk factors in older populations. He was an editor, along with Tom Hickey and Marjorie Speers, of the first volume of the book, Public Health and Aging as well as the second volume, with Lynda Anderson and Robert Binstock, (2012) Public Health for an Aging Society. His research interests focus on gerontological public health including physical activity, health behavior, illness behavior in older adults, self-care and chronic disease management in older populations, and the translation and dissemination of evidence-based research and health innovations in older populations. He is on the editorial board of The Gerontologist, the Journal of Gerontology Social Sciences and the Journal of Health and Aging. Dr. Prohaska research funding sources have included the Administration on Aging, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National Institute on Aging, the Retirement Research Foundation and Easter Seals.
He has served on numerous regional and national advisory panels including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Expert Panel on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity-Related Health Disparities as well as NIH study review panels, the Governor's Older Adult Services Advisory Committee (OASAC) for Illinois and the CDC Healthy Aging research Network (CDC-HAN). He has received recognition for his teaching and has sponsored pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellows in public health, gerontology and medicine.
Dr. Prohaska received his PhD in Experimental Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia and his Post-doctoral training in Health Psychology and Gerontology at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
William Reeder has enjoyed a 30-year career in education, management, philanthropic administration and the arts. Currently serving as the founding Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University, Dean Reeder oversees seven academic divisions: The School of Music, School of Art, School of Dance, Theater Department, Arts Management Masters Program, Film and Video Studies Program, Computer Game Design Program and the Potomac Arts Academy.
As Dean, he also manages two campus-based regional performing arts centers, the Center for the Arts in Fairfax, and the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas. A member of Phi Beta Delta, international scholars fraternity, Dean Reeder represented Mason at the African-U.S. Initiative Conference in Rwanda in 2008. This led to the creation of the International Center for the Management of Education, Arts and Culture.
Mr. Reeder also serves as Co-Director of Mason's Confucius Institute. Funded by the Chinese government, the Institute is a partnership between Mason and the Beijing Language and Cultural University.
In 2011, he was elected Chairman of the Prince William County Economic Development Alliance - a consortium of business, civic, political and education leaders constituted to guide and advise the County Board of Supervisors on economic development.
Prior to joining Mason, Dean Reeder was Vice President and General Manager of the Washington Performing Arts Society. For two years, he was with the Sallie Mae Corporation. From 1993-97, he was Executive Director of the Levine School of Music, in Washington D. C. For eight years, he was a leading operatic tenor engaged by the Zurich, Switzerland Opera Company.
Dean Reeder holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. He completed 55 hours of Doctoral credits at Indiana University, Bloomington, and holds a Certificate in Fund Raising Management from the Indiana University/Purdue University Center on Philanthropy. He is currently a Doctoral candidate in Mason's Doctorate of Arts in Community College Education, and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the Community College Honor Society.
Edward Rhodes is Dean of the George Mason University School of Public Policy. Dean Rhodes's research investigates core questions of American foreign and national security policy and of international behavior. A principal focus of his work has been on the intellectual foundations of America's engagement with the world outside its borders, particularly on the effect of alternative understandings of liberalism, democracy, and republicanism in shaping American attitudes toward intervention and global involvement.
Prior to joining George Mason University, Dean Rhodes was a member of the faculty of Rutgers University, serving as founding Director of the Rutgers Center for Global Security and Democracy and as Dean of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. From 2007-09, he was a visiting professor at Princeton University, and has held research appointments at Harvard, Stanford, and Cornell Universities.
As a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dean Rhodes served in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in the Strategy and Concepts branch of the U.S. Navy Staff. From 2000-01, he posted overseas as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Latvia. From 2003-09, Dean Rhodes served on the State Department's Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, the Congressionally mandated body overseeing the preparation and release of the official record of American foreign policy.
Dean Rhodes received his A.B. from Harvard University and his MPA and Ph.D. degrees from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Anne Schiller is Vice President for Global Strategies and Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University.
Dr. Schiller's field research among indigenous peoples in the rain forests of Indonesian Borneo has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and others.She has authored a book, Small Sacrifices: Religious Change and Cultural Identity Among the Ngaju of Indonesia (Oxford), and numerous scholarly articles and chapters based on her findings.
Dr. Schiller's current fieldwork concerns identity and social change in Florence, Italy. She is completing a manuscript, Merchants in the City of Art: Heritage and Identities in a Florentine Neighborhood.
Before coming to Mason, Dr. Schiller served as Director of International Programs and Director of the Anthropology Graduate Program in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at North Carolina State University. She was also named Alumni Distinguished Professor and honored with the Rigby Award for International Service at North Carolina State University.
In 2010, Dr. Schiller was selected as a recipient of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars Fulbright International Education Administrators Award for Korea.
Dr. Schiller earned her B.A., magna cum laude in Anthropology, at the University of Virginia, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology at Cornell University. She has completed advanced language-training programs at Universitas Satya Wacana in Salatiga, Indonesia, and at the Lorenzo de' Medici Institute in Florence, Italy.
Wayne Sigler began his work as Vice President for Enrollment Management at George Mason University on July 16, 2012. This is a new position for Mason and entails leading the development and implementation of a university-wide comprehensive and coordinated strategic enrollment management program. Dr. Sigler will also lead a new Division of Enrollment Management that consists of three administrative units - the Office of Admissions, Office of Student Financial Aid, and the Office of Continuing Professional Education.
Dr. Sigler has a proven track record of enrollment success and is widely viewed as one of the top enrollment professionals in the country. Prior to joining Mason, he served as Director of Admissions at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for twenty years, building an undergraduate admissions program that is regarded as one of the elite programs in both the Big Ten and the United States.
Before joining the University of Minnesota, Dr. Sigler served as Dean of Admissions and Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Services at the University of Houston, Dean of Student and Academic Services at Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University, San Marcos), Director of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Maryland College Park, and Associate Director of Admissions at Towson State College (now Towson University).
Dr. Sigler has had a significant influence on the national enrollment management movement as a practitioner, author, speaker, and consultant. He developed the nationally recognized Tri-O leadership/management system that is stakeholder-focused and outcomes-oriented. He is the author of the book Managing for Change: Shifting from Process-Centric to Results-Oriented Operations. He chaired AACRAO's national Enrollment Management Committee several times and helped develop AACRAO's national Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) Conference. In 2008, Dr. Sigler received the AACRAO APEX Award that recognizes excellence in education administration and outstanding achievement and influence in the profession. He also served a two-year term as President (and currently serves on the Executive Council) of the Association of Chief Admissions Officers of Public Universities (ACAOPU), the major professional organization for chief admissions officers of the nation's flagship public universities.
Dr. Sigler earned a B.S. in Political Science from Towson State College, a Master of Arts in Education and a Doctor of Education in Higher Education from George Washington University.
Peter N. Stearns became Provost and Professor of History at George Mason University on January 1, 2000; he was named University Professor in January 2011. He has taught previously at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Rutgers, and Carnegie Mellon; he was educated at Harvard University.
Dr. Stearns has authored or edited over 110 books. He has published widely in modern social history, including the history of emotions, and in world history. Representative recent or forthcoming works include: Satisfaction Not Guaranteed: Dilemmas of Progress in Modern Society; Doing Emotions History; and Demilitarization in Modern History. He has also edited encyclopedias of world and social history, and since 1967 has served as editor-in-chief of The Journal of Social History.
In most of his research and writing, Dr. Stearns pursues three main goals. First, as a social historian he is eager to explore aspects of the human experience that are not generally thought of in historical terms, and with attention to ordinary people as well as elites. Second, he seeks to use an understanding of historical change and continuity to explore patterns of behavior and social issues. Finally he is concerned with connecting new historical research with wider audiences, including of course classrooms. Dr. Stearns is also eager to promote comparative analysis and the assessment of modern global forces - for their own sake and as they illuminate the American experience and impact.
During Dr. Stearns' tenure as Provost, Mason has more than tripled its level of funded research and has tripled its number of doctoral programs. Expanding global partnerships include a growing number of dual degree programs and elaborate connections with students and universities in countries like China, Turkey, South Korea and Brazil.
Renell Wynn brings to Mason over 15 years of substantial executive experience as a communications and marketing professional in higher education. Ms. Wynn has experience with creating, planning, and implementing a strategic communication strategy as well as managing a wide range of communication programs.
Prior to joining Mason, Ms. Wynn served as assistant vice president for Development Relations at the College of William and Mary. In this role, she developed and implemented marketing plans to enhance the university's image, utilized strategic communication to create initiatives to impact overall goals and objectives, and managed various communication vehicles including advertising, graphic design, public and media relations, and web communications.
Ms. Wynn received her master's degree in business administration from William Woods University and a bachelor's in English from Spelman College.
John Zenelis has been leading Mason's libraries for the past fourteen years, while also fulfilling additional responsibilities as Associate Vice President for the last eleven years. He came to George Mason University from Temple University where he served first as Associate, then as Deputy, and afterwards as acting University Librarian. Earlier, he held progressively higher level management positions at Columbia University's library system. He began his career in research librarianship at The Research Libraries, The New York Public Library.
Under Mr. Zenelis's leadership, Mason's libraries have transformed into a significant, dynamic, and innovative organization. Its services and programs are closely aligned with the academic and research programs of the university's schools and colleges. Library resources, services and programs have consistently received high satisfaction scores from Mason's faculty and students in LibQUAL - a nationally normed survey regularly administered during the last five years. With its recent emergence into a research-level library, it is steadily accruing national recognition for Mason.
Mr. Zenelis also implemented the Libraries' advancement program, consisting of external relations, fund-raising, and grants initiatives. Noteworthy accomplishments thus far include: Reached approximately 1,000 donors, contributing at various levels, annually; establishment of an external Library Advisory Board; 14 endowments for library collections and programs; five estate planning (legacy) commitments; Financial and in-kind support from: Council of Library and Information Resources; National Historical Publications and Records Commission; The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; The Nippon Foundation (in-kind); The Jamestowne Society (Washington, DC and Northern Virginia Chapter); and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
His current professional and academic service includes representing and coordinating interests of the University in his area of responsibility externally, while serving in leadership roles, with the following organizations: Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (Board of Directors, 2011-13 term); Washington Research Libraries Consortium (Library Directors Council); and, Library Advisory Committee of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (chair for the 2009-11 term), along with the landmark state-wide Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA) program (Steering Committee).
Among his broader consulting and teaching activities are: served as external reviewer at several colleges and universities for library and academic information technology services; served as external expert for the Ministry of Education of Greece, and taught as adjunct faculty member at the School of Library and Information Science, The Catholic University of America.
Mr. Zenelis has a range of academic and professional publications to his credit, and has made presentations at various professional conferences and organizations.
His educational background includes political science with degrees from Temple University (B.A.) and the Graduate School & University Center, The City University of New York (M.A.), and library and information science (MLS) from the University of Pittsburgh. He also completed doctoral studies in administration of higher education, Temple University.
Matthew Zingraff is Interim Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Professor, Criminology, Law and society.
Dr. Zingraff has been active in research administration for fifteen years. He served as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at North Carolina State University and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs at George Mason University; both appointments were with colleges of humanities and social sciences. He has headed and served on numerous task forces to examine, review, and formulate institutional policy regarding expansion of research funding, responsible conduct of research, intellectual property, consulting policies, and conflict of interest.
Dr. Zingraff's current research interests are in the area of crime and social control, in particular the phenomenon of biased-based policing and racial profiling. His work has been funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Justice, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the North Carolina Department of Crime Control, and other state and municipal entities. His scholarship has been published in the American Journal of Sociology, Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Police Quarterly, Social Work Research, Journal of Social and Behavioral Sciences, International Journal of the Addictions, and other peer reviewed journals. Dr. Zingraff has served as statistical consultant to the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice.
He earned his Ph.D. at Bowling Green State University.