Advisory Board
Nancy Hardt, M.D. is a Professor of Pathology and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, Director for Health Disparities and Service Learning Programs, and the Associate Director of the Family Data Center. In past, she served as the Senior Associate Dean for External Affairs, and Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs and Managed Care. She served as President of College of Medicine Faculty Council in 1994-1995.
In her current role she fosters collaborations with community leaders to address local...
Angela S. Lindner received a B.S. degree in chemistry from the College of Charleston in South Carolina in 1983 and an M.S. degree in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University in 1987. Her Master’s thesis work, funded by the Texas Transportation Institute, involved use of phosphogypsum, a byproduct of phosphoric acid production, in road construction, and this work began her environmentally focused career path. She served as a chemical engineer at the Office of Mobile Sources of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Ann Arbor,...
Sharon Wright Austin is associate professor of political science at the University of Florida and a former associate professor of political science and black studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She has also taught courses at the Universities of Michigan and Louisville and at Yale University. Dr. Wright received a doctorate in political science from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1993. Her teaching interests are in American Government, Urban Politics, and African American Politics and her research interests are in...
Kenneth Wald has written about the relationship of religion and politics in the United States, Europe, and Israel. His books include The Politics of Cultural Differences: Social Change and Voter Mobilization Strategies in the Post-New Deal Period (Princeton University Press), Politics of Gay Rights (University of Chicago Press) and Religion and Politics in the United States (6th ed., Rowman & Littlefield). His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science,...
Dr. Elizabeth Yeager Washington, a professor of social studies education at the School of Teaching and Learning, is one of the leading experts on civics education in Florida and the United States.
She is involved in an ongoing effort in conjunction with the Graham Center and the Lou Frey Institute at the University of Central Florida to improve the state of civics education for Sunshine State students.
Florida typically ranks near the bottom in surveys of voter turnout, volunteerism and civic participation in the nation. Dr. Washington's work...
Dr. Joseph F. Spillane currently serves as Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Director of the Academic Advising Center in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Associate Professor Spillane received his Ph.D. in 1994 in History from Carnegie Mellon University, his M.A. in 1989 from Carnegie Mellon University and his B.A. in 1988 from Gettysburg College. He joined University of Florida Department of History in 1995 after teaching at Indiana University-Bloomington. He has published Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the...
Dr. David J. Sammons is currently Dean of UF International Center (UFIC). He previously held a position of director of International Programs in the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Agronomy from University of Illinois in 1978.
Dr. Sammons has a wide range of international experiences, first as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines (1968-1970), and in recent years in short-term consultant positions with USAID in West Africa, Egypt, and Sudan, and as a Fulbright...
Dr. Alexa Lamm is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication and the Director of the National Public Policy Evaluation Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources (NPPEC). The NPPEC is a subsidiary of the Center for Public Issues Education within the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) at the University of Florida. She received her undergraduate (1999) and M.A. degree (2000) from Colorado State University. She then worked as an agricultural extension agent in Colorado for eight years...
After 30 years with the St. Petersburg Times, Mike Foley joined the faculty in August 2003 as a Master Lecturer in journalism. Foley’s classes focus on news reporting and writing. Previously, he served as executive editor, managing editor, metropolitan editor and city editor of the Times. He also worked on the business side of the paper as vice president of Community Relations. He oversaw community relations, the Times’ grants and scholarship programs and served as company spokesman. He started his journalism career in 1970 as a reporter for...
Todd Leedy (Ph.D. History, University of Florida, 2000) is Associate Director and Senior Lecturer in the Center for African Studies. He is co-editor of African Migration Today: Patterns and Perspectives (Indiana University Press, 2013) and author, among other publications, of “A Starving Belly Doesn’t Listen to Explanations: Agricultural Evangelism in Colonial Zimbabwe, c.1900-62,” Agricultural History (2010) and “History with a Mission: Abraham Kawadza and Narratives of Agrarian Change in Zimbabwe.” History in Africa (2006). His UF courses...
Ann Christiano is the Frank Karel Endowed Chair in Public Interest Communicationsin the College of Journalism at the University of Florida. Before she accepted this position in 2010, Ann Christiano directed communications for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Vulnerable Populations portfolio. This portfolio creates new opportunities for better health by investing in health where it starts and grows--in our homes, schools and jobs. The social innovations the portfolio supports work in the domains of education, housing or corrections, but...
Senior Lecturer Steven Noll received his Ph.D. in 1991 in American History from the University of Florida, his M.A. in 1985 from the University of Florida, and M.Ed. from the University of Florida in Special Education in 1976 and his B.A. in 1974 from the College of William and Mary. He joined the University of Florida Department of History in 1992.
He has published three books: Feeble-Minded in our Midst (1995); Mental Retardation in America (2004); and, most recently, Ditch of Dreams: The Cross-Florida Barge Canal and the Struggle for...
Philip Williams is Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Professor of Political Science. Williams received his M.Phil in Latin American Studies and D.Phil in Politics from the University of Oxford in 1986.
He is author of The Catholic Church and Politics in Nicaragua and Costa Rica (Macmillan 1989), Militarization and Demilitarization in El Salvador's Transition to Democracy (University of Pittsburgh 1997), and co-editor of Christianity, Globalization, and Social Change in the Americas (Rutgers University 2001) and A Place to...
Brian Ray is the Associate Dean and Director of the Heavener School of Business at the University of Florida and serves on the faculty as a Lecturer in Leadership and Ethics. Dr. Ray received his Ph.D. in University Administration from Florida State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Central Florida. He earned his undergraduate degree in Finance from Stetson University. While at Stetson, he served as Student Body Vice President during his junior year and Student Body President during his senior year. Dr. Ray is also a graduate of...
Alyson Flournoy is currently the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Alumni Research Scholar at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Professor Flournoy's scholarship focuses on environmental ethics, decision-making processes under environmental and natural resource laws, and on the intersection of science and law. She has addressed these themes in writings about endangered species and forest management, wetlands conservation and restoration, and regulation of toxic substances. Her most recent work focuses on the importance...
