Faculty

Jennifer Lawless

Jennifer
Lawless

Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics and Professor of Public Policy
264 Gibson Hall

Jennifer L. Lawless is the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics and professor of public policy at the University of Virginia and at the Batten School. Lawless is also a Senior Fellow at UVA's Miller Center. Her research focuses on political ambition, campaigns and elections, and media and politics.

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David Leblang

David
Leblang

Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics and 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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Brooke Lehmann

Brooke Lehmann is a lecturer at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. A national expert on the design, development, and reform of pediatric health/mental health services, special education and child welfare systems, her work addresses policies ranging from school-based health care to international crisis support for children and families.

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Michael Lenox

Michael
Lenox

Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business and Professor of Public Policy; Senior Faculty Fellow, UVA Miller Center; Senior Advisor to the Dean, Darden

Michael J. Lenox is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration and special advisor for the dean at the Darden School of Business; senior faculty fellow at the Miller Center, where he serves as an Academic Co-Director of the Project on Democracy and Capitalism; and professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Lenox's primary expertise is in the domain of technology strategy and policy. He is broadly interested in the role of innovation and entrepreneurship for economic growth and firm competitive success.

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Molly Lipscomb

Molly
Lipscomb

Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics, Director of Social Innovation @ UVA

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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Margaret Foster Riley

Margaret Foster
Riley

Professor of Law and Public Policy
580 Massie Road, Room WB347

Margaret Foster Riley is a professor of law and public policy at the Batten School, a professor of law at UVA's School of Law and has a secondary appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Riley has written and presented extensively about biomedical research, genetics, reproductive technologies, stem cell research, animal biotechnology, health disparities and chronic disease. She serves as chair of UVA’s Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee and as legal advisor to the Health Sciences Institutional Review Board, which is responsible for reviewing all human subject research at UVA involving medically invasive procedures.

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Kimberly Jenkins Robinson

Kimberly Jenkins
Robinson

Professor of Law, Education and Public Policy

Kimberly Jenkins Robinson is a professor of law, education and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Robinson is a national expert who speaks domestically and internationally about educational equity, equal educational opportunity, civil rights and the federal role in education. Her work proposes innovative legal and policy solutions to ensure that all children receive equal access to an excellent education.

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Gerard Robinson

Gerard
Robinson

Professor of Practice in Public Policy and Law
Garrett Hall L031

As of fall 2023, Gerard Robinson is a professor of practice in public policy and law at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the School of Law at the University of Virginia. As a Fellow of Practice at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, Robinson has written about K-12 and higher education, public policy, economic mobility, after-school programs, and race. Robinson will teach on education, prisons, and public policy.

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Christopher Ruhm

Christopher
J.
Ruhm

Professor of Public Policy and Economics

Christopher J. Ruhm is a professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Ruhm’s recent research has focused on the role of government policies in helping parents with young children balance the competing needs of work and family life, and on examining how various aspects of health are produced – including the growth and sources of drug poisoning deaths in the United States, the rise in obesity and the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and health.

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