Faculty

Lucy Bassett

Lucy
Bassett

Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy; Co-Director, UVA Humanitarian Collaborative
Garrett Hall L032

Lucy Bassett is an associate professor of practice of public policy at the Batten School and 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.

Read full bio
Daphna Bassock

Daphna
Bassok

Professor of Education and Public Policy

Daphna Bassok is professor of education and public policy at the University of Virginia and associate director of EdPolicyWorks, a collaboration between the School of Education and Human Development and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Her research focuses on early childhood education policy and efforts to improve early childhood education at scale, particularly policies aimed at supporting the early childhood education workforce.

Read full bio
Alex Bick

Alexander
Bick

Associate Professor of Practice in Public Policy
Garrett Hall L015

Alexander Bick is associate professor of practice in public policy in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He brings more than twenty years of experience in national security policy and research, including senior roles in the U.S. government, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions.     

Read full bio
Brendan Boler

Brendan
J.
Boler

Assistant Professor of Public Policy

Brendan Boler is an assistant professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Boler specializes in management consulting, high-performance coaching, and talent assessment and selection. He has extensive experience within the fields of management consulting and banking, having worked at Accenture, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. 

Read full bio
Richard Bonnie

Richard
Bonnie

Professor of Law, Medicine, and Public Policy; Director of Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy
580 Massie Road, Room WB 179D

Richard J. Bonnie is a professor of public policy at the Batten School and Director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. ­­He teaches and writes about health law and policy, bioethics, criminal law, and public policies relating to mental health, substance abuse and public health.

Read full bio
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.

Read full bio
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.

Read full bio
James Savage

James
Savage

Professor of Politics and Public Policy

James D. Savage is a professor of politics and public policy at the Batten School and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. His research and teaching focus on comparative budgetary, fiscal, and macroeconomic policy, with an emphasis on the United States, the European Union, Iraq and Japan. He is particularly interested in the development of macrobudgetary rules, procedures, and institutions in these countries, and how they influence fiscal outcomes.

Read full bio
Abigail Scholer

Abigail
Scholer

Batten Family Bicentennial Distinguished Leadership Professor of Public Policy
Garrett Hall 107

As of Fall 2023, Abigail Scholer is Batten Family Bicentennial Distinguished Leadership Professor of Public Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Broadly, she researches the dynamic, complex, and often confounding world of human motivation and self-regulation: What makes us reach for the stars, huddle in a corner, get out of bed, help others, break our diets, save for retirement, follow rules, and color outside the lines? 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.

Read full bio
Beth Schueler

Beth
Schueler

Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy
Ruffner Hall 268

Beth Schueler is an assistant professor of education and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Schueler studies education policy, politics, and inequality with a focus on efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools and districts.

Read full bio
Todd Sechser

Todd
S.
Sechser

Professor of Politics and Public Policy
S182 Gibson Hall

Todd S. Sechser is a professor of politics and public policy at the Batten School and the Pamela Feinour Edmonds and Franklin S. Edmonds Jr. Discovery Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. Sechser is also a Senior Fellow at UVA's Miller Center. His research interests include coercive diplomacy, emerging technologies, nuclear security and political violence

Read full bio
Jay Shimshack

Jay
Shimshack

Professor of Public Policy and Economics

Jay Shimshack is a professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Shimshack's research focuses on environmental regulation, environmental economics, corporate social behavior, and applied microeconomics for public policy. 

Read full bio
William Shobe

William
Shobe

Research Professor of Public Policy; Director, Center for Economic and Policy Studies, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service

William Shobe is research professor of public policy at the Batten School and the Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Shobe's current research includes emission market and auction design, environmental federalism, improved economic modeling of Virginia’s economy, state economic development incentives and state economic forecasting.

Read full bio
Shelly Smith

Shelly
Smith

Associate Professor of Nursing and Public Policy

Shelly Porter Smith is an associate professor of nursing and public policy at Batten. Prior to her appointment at UVA, Smith mentored faculty scholars in legislative advocacy, proposal and grant writing, and authoring policy briefs and white paper as a Translational Research Fellow in Residence at VCU in addition to serving as director of nursing graduate programs.  Smith is a long-time preceptor to UVA nurse practitioner master's students, and part of the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority’s nursing preceptor incentive program work group.

Read full bio
Ian Solomon

Ian
H.
Solomon

Dean and Professor of Practice of Public Policy
Garrett Hall 200

Ian H. Solomon is dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, where he leads a multidisciplinary faculty in creating new knowledge and developing leaders who can solve humanity’s greatest policy challenges. Trained as a lawyer, Solomon is a devoted student and teacher of both negotiation and conflict resolution.

Read full bio
Allan Stam

Allan
Stam

University Professor of Public Policy and Politics

Allan C. Stam is a University Professor of public policy and politics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. His research focuses on the dynamics of armed conflict between and within states. Stam has also worked on several survey-based projects including surveys conducted in Russia, Rwanda, India and the United States.

Read full bio