Faculty & Staff Directory

Elinor Tappe

Elinor (Ellie)
Tappé

Executive Director of Strategic Advancement

Elinor (Ellie) Tappé serves as Executive Director of Strategic Advancement where she helps shape and realize the strategic objectives of the Batten School. With a 25-year history in strategic planning and development, Ellie has held a variety of leadership roles in the corporate sector, as well as higher education and nonprofit. Her experience in philanthropy spans more than a decade and includes UC Berkeley, Larkin Street Youth Services and Urban Teachers.  

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Sebastian Tello Trillo

Sebastian
Tello-Trillo

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an assistant professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He studies health policy in the U.S and Latin America, with a particular focus on understanding how policies affect individuals’ health behaviors and economic outcomes. 

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Melissa Thomas-Hunt

Melissa
Thomas-Hunt

John D. Forbes Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Public Policy

Melissa Thomas-Hunt is a professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the John Forbes Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Thomas-Hunt focuses on leadership, team dynamics, and negotiations and her research studies the factors that unleash, leverage, and amplify the contributions made by individuals, particularly women, underrepresented individuals, and numerical minorities. 

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Sophie Trawalter

Sophie
Trawalter

Batten Family Bicentennial Teacher-Scholar Leadership Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Psychology

Sophie Trawalter, Batten Family Bicentennial Teacher-Scholar Leadership Professor of Public Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, studies phenomena related to social diversity, specifically how people navigate intergroup contact and intergroup contexts, with a particular focus on how people develop competencies and learn to thrive in diverse spaces.

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Sarah Turner

Sarah
Turner

University Professor of Economics, Education and Public Policy
Olsson Hall, Room 217

Sarah Turner is a University Professor of economics, education and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Souder Family Endowed Professor. Much of her research focuses on post-secondary education, where she explores the intersection of education and economics policies.

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