Faculty & Staff Directory

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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Andy Pennock

Andrew
S.
Pennock

Associate Professor of Public Policy

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

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John Pepper

John
Pepper

Professor of Economics and Public Policy

John V. Pepper is a professor of economics and public policy at the Batten School and a professor of economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Virginia. His work examines identification problems that arise when evaluating a wide range of public policy questions including such subjects as health and disability programs, welfare policies (e.g., SNAP), and drug and crime policies.

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Dan Player

Daniel
W.
Player

Associate Professor of Public Policy

Dan Player is an associate professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. His research focuses on issues in education policy. His work has examined questions such as how teacher ability is recognized and rewarded in schools, whether teacher performance predicts turnover, and how teachers respond to working conditions.

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Phil Potter

Philip
Potter

Professor of Politics and Public Policy; Founding Director of the National Security Policy Center
Gibson Hall and NSPC

Philip Potter is a professor of politics and Founding Director of the National Security Policy Center at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He is also a University Expert with the National Ground Intelligence Center, US Army INSCOM. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Politics and the Journal of Global Security Studies and is an Associate Principal Investigator for Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS). 

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Rachel Potter

Rachel
A.
Potter

Associate Professor of Politics and Public Policy
Gibson Hall

Rachel Augustine Potter is an Associate Professor of Politics, a Senior Fellow at the Miller Center for Public Affairs, and Associate Professor of Public Policy by Courtesy in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.  Her research focuses on American political institutions, with a particular emphasis on the executive branch and the bureaucracy.

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