Ben Castleman is an associate professor of public policy and education at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on policies and strategies to improve postsecondary educational and workforce outcomes for individuals from lower-income and historically-marginalized communities. His current work focuses on innovations to increase economic mobility among lower-wage adults, including digital- and health-skills training programs; state-funded career and technical education; and competency-based education models for working adults.

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.

Pamela Cipriano is a professor of nursing and public policy at the Batten School. Cipriano served as dean of the UVA School of Nursing and the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing through July 2022. Cipriano’s more than 40-year career in nursing is marked by a focus on improving the safety and efficiency of care by ensuring a healthy, safe, and supportive work environment and encouraging healthy behaviors to promote well-being.

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

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.  

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.  

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.

Galen Fountain is a lecturer at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Previously, he served for nearly two decades as Clerk of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies and prior to that as Counsel to the Senate Committee on Small Business. 

Leora Friedberg is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the Batten School and an associate professor and Vice Chair at UVA's Department of Economics. Her focus is on labor economics, including research on social security, aging and retirement economic impacts.

Kirsten Gelsdorf is a professor of practice in public policy and Co-Director of the UVA Humanitarian Collaborative in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Gelsdorf has 19 years of experience working in the humanitarian sector, most recently serving as the Chief of the Policy Analysis and Innovation section at the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.