Faculty & Staff Directory

Colin Achiles

Colin
Achilles

Associate Director, Center for Effective Lawmaking

Colin Achilles is the Associate Director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), a joint partnership between the Batten School and Vanderbilt University. He is the manager of day-to-day operations at CEL. 

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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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Shawn Anderson

Shawn
Anderson

Associate Director of Student Services & Community Engagement
Garrett Hall L002B

Shawn Anderson is the Batten School's Associate Director of Student Services & Community Engagement, and is responsible for advising undergraduate and graduate students in their co-curricular and service-related endeavors, as well as organizing school-wide student programming. Anderson is currently working towards a doctorate in Higher Education Administration at UVA, where his key focus is student development.

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Allison Atteberry

Allison
Atteberry

Associate Professor of Education and Public Policy; DIRECTOR, CENTER ON EDUCATION POLICY AND WORKFORCE COMPETITIVENESS

Allison Atteberry is an associate professor of education and public policy and director of EdPolicyWorks, a collaboration between the School of Education and Human Development and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Atteberry conducts research on teacher- and school-level interventions designed to improve the quality of instruction experienced by historically underserved students.

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Maura Austin

Maura
Austin

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Maura Austin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. She studies person perception, motivation, social judgment and decision making, and moral character judgment. 

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Leah Daniel is Batten’s Salesforce Manager. Prior to joining Batten, Leah was Senior Financial Analyst and Salesforce Administrator at UVA School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. She brings years of database management experience to Batten from her role as database manager at both the Darden School Foundation (1997-2003) and the UVA Law School Foundation (2004-2017). Leah holds a B.S. from the University of South Carolina.

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Tim Davis

Timothy
L.
Davis

Associate Professor of Leadership and Public Policy
Garrett Hall

Tim Davis is an associate professor of leadership and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.  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.  

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Alec Davis headshot

Alec
Davis

Lab Manager, CHIP and Motivation Science Labs

Alec Davis is the Lab Manager for the Culture, History, Identity, and Policy Lab and the Social Motivation Lab in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

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Jim Detert

James
R.
Detert

Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy

Jim Detert is the John L. Colley Professor of Business Administration in the Leadership and Organizational Behavior area at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and professor of business administration and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Detert's research focuses on workplace courage, ethical decision-making and behavior, improvement-oriented voice (why people speak up or stay silent at work) and other leadership-related topics.

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Kyle Dobson

Kyle S. H.
Dobson

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology

Kyle S. H. Dobson is an assistant professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.  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. 

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Heather Downs

Heather
Downs

Director of Academic Operations

Heather Downs joined Batten in December 2023 as the Director of Academic Operations. She has served UVA Athletics since 2013, most recently as the Executive Director of Student Development.

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