Organizational Behavior, Decision-Making,
& Behavioral Science

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. 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.

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.

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.

Gerald Higginbotham is an assistant professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. 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.

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

Kyle S. H. Dobson is an assistant professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.  Dobson takes an interdisciplinary approach to organizational studies, focusing primarily on occupations where employees sacrifice their well-being in service to others. His work has focused on police departments primarily, with expansion to schools and other organizations.

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. 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.

Tim Davis is an associate professor of leadership and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.  A clinical psychologist, Davis helps students, executives and teams increase their effectiveness by building resiliency, strengthening community and expanding self-awareness. At Batten, he teaches courses on team leadership, group dynamics and emotional resilience.

Andy Pennock is an associate professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He serves UVA as the faculty director of Batten’s MPP orientation program, on Batten’s curriculum committee, and as an elected member of the Executive Council of the Faculty Senate. Pennock’s academic research examines public policy in the global economy as well as the scholarship of teaching and learning

Alexander Bick is associate professor of practice in public policy in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. 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.

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.