Faculty & Staff Directory

Nick Elacqua

Nick
Elacqua

Lab Manager, APPLE and SCABL Labs

Nick Elacqua is the Lab Manager for the Applied Public Policy and Leadership Experiments (APPLE) Lab and the Social Cognition and Behavior Lab (SCABL) in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

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Essence Ellis

Essence
Ellis

Academic Operations Manager

Essence Ellis joined the Batten School in 2024 as the Academic Operations Manager. Essence supports students and faculty by maintaining academic records and providing general programmatic assistance. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Randolph-Macon College and completed her Master of Divinity at Yale Divinity School. A native of Charlottesville, she enjoys spending time with her loved ones and traveling when possible.

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Bevin Etienne

Bevin
Etienne

Assistant Professor of Commerce and Public Policy

Bevin Etienne is assistant professor of commerce and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Etienne has extensive teaching and course development experience in the areas of sustainability, entrepreneurship, energy, and engineering design. He emphasizes the importance of capacity building in promoting sustainability and social entrepreneurship in developing countries as well as the role of open source in innovation and entrepreneurship.  

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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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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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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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