Faculty

Gabrielle Adams

Gabrielle
Adams

Associate Professor of Public Policy, Business Administration, and Psychology

Gabrielle Adams is an associate professor of public policy and business administration at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and in the Darden School of Business’s Leadership and Organizational Behavior area. Adams studies the processes and dynamics that give rise to ‘good’ decisions, policies and conditions in organizations.

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Lucy Bassett

Lucy
Bassett

Professor of Practice in Public Policy; Co-Director, UVA Humanitarian Collaborative

Lucy Bassett is a professor of practice in public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.  Bassett is an expert in children, caregivers, and communities in humanitarian and development contexts. Over her 15 year career, Bassett has worked with governments in low- and middle-income countries to expand access to quality education, nutrition and social protection services, particularly for poor and marginalized children and families.

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Jeanine Braithwaite

Jeanine
Braithwaite

Lecturer; Professor of Public Policy (Retired)

Jeanine Braithwaite is a professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Prior to joining the Batten School, she was a senior economist at the World Bank, specializing in social protection policy and poverty analysis. She has also worked at the International Monetary Fund and U.S. Census Bureau, providing technical assistance to the U.S.S.R. and newly-independent former Soviet republics.

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Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi

Jazmin
Brown-Iannuzzi

Associate Professor of Psychology and Public Policy

Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi is an associate professor of psychology and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Brown-Iannuzzi's research seeks to understand why social group disparities may persist and, in some cases, grow.

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Eileen Chou

Eileen
Chou

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Batten Family Bicentennial Teacher-Scholar Leadership Professor of Public Policy; Professor of Public Policy and Psychology

Eileen Chou, associate dean for academic affairs and Batten Family Bicentennial Teacher-Scholar Leadership Professor of Public Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, researches the organizational, social, and psychological forces that shape individual and group behavior in organizational settings.

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Benjamin Converse

Benjamin
Converse

Associate Professor of Public Policy and Psychology

Benjamin Converse is an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on motivation, social judgment, problem solving and decision making. He teaches courses related to leadership and negotiations.

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Kirsten Gelsdorf

Kirsten
Gelsdorf

Professor of Practice in Public Policy; Co-Director, UVA Humanitarian Collaborative
Garrett Hall

Kirsten Gelsdorf is a professor of practice in public policy and Co-Director of the UVA Humanitarian Collaborative in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Gelsdorf has 19 years of experience working in the humanitarian sector, most recently serving as the Chief of the Policy Analysis and Innovation section at the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

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Harry Harding

Harry
Harding

University Professor Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy

Harry Harding is university professor emeritus and professor emeritus of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, a senior fellow in the Miller Center of Public Affairs at UVA, and Adjunct Chair Professor in the College of Social Science at National Chengchi University in Taipei, where he holds a Yushan Scholarship. Harding is a specialist on Asia and U.S. - Asian relations.

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Gerald Higginbotham

Gerald
Higginbotham

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology

Gerald Higginbotham is an assistant professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Utilizing social and cultural psychological insights, Higginbotham researches the imprint of history on people’s modern social perceptions and policy attitudes, and the psychological underpinnings of how people perceive history and its consequences. 

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Peter Johannessen

Peter
Johannessen

Assistant Professor of Public Policy; CTE Faculty Fellow
Garrett Hall

Peter Johannessen is an assistant professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Johannessen’s research explores how popular participation shapes the local policy-making process, including projects that focus on local electoral responsiveness and the design of participatory governance institutions in Brazil.

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David Leblang

David
Leblang

Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics and Professor of Public Policy

David Leblang is a professor of public policy at the Batten School, the Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, and the Randolph Compton Professor of Public Affairs at UVA's Miller Center. Leblang is a scholar of political economy with research interests in global migration and in the politics of financial markets.

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Molly Lipscomb

Molly
Lipscomb

Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics; Director of the Center for Social Innovation

Molly Lipscomb is an associate professor of public policy and economics at the Batten School and the Director of the Center for Social Innovation at the University of Virginia.  Lipscomb’s research focuses primarily on environmental issues in developing countries and adaptation to lack of centralized health and sanitation services. 

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Isaac Mbiti

Isaac
Mbiti

Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics

Isaac M. Mbiti is an associate professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. His research has focused broadly on African economic development with particular interests in examining the role of education policies such as free primary education and teacher performance pay programs. Mbiti's ongoing research projects in East and West Africa evaluate various policies that aim to improve the livelihoods of African youth through training programs.

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Abigail Scholer

Abigail
Scholer

Batten Family Bicentennial Distinguished Leadership Professor of Public Policy; Professor of Public Policy and Psychology
Garrett Hall

Abigail Scholer is Batten Family Bicentennial Distinguished Leadership Professor of Public Policy and professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Scholer studies fundamental and basic processes related to goal pursuit, decision-making, social regulation, motivated social cognition, and behavior change, with an aim for understanding how these basic processes can be leveraged to address societal challenges and improve people’s lives.

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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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Timothy Wilson

Timothy
Wilson

Sherrell J. Aston Professor Emeritus of Psychology

Timothy Wilson is Sherrell J Aston Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Virginia. Wilson has conducted research showing the limits of introspection as a source of self-knowledge, the dangers of engaging in too much introspection about why we do what we do, the difficulty in predicting our future emotional reactions, as well as the pleasures we can derive from “just thinking.” He has also conducted research on applications of social psychology to address social problems.

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