Deb Aikat is an associate professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. His work theorizes the role of digital media in the global sphere and his research ranges across media.

Jay Aikat is the chief operating officer (COO) at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and a research associate professor in the Department of Computer Science.

Travis Albritton is a clinical associate professor and associate dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the School of Social Work. He currently chairs the School of Social Work’s Diversity Committee and serves on the University’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. His research interests include educational equity in K-12 education, academic achievement among Black males, and closing educational opportunity gaps for children of all ages.

Emily Boehm is an educational developer and evolutionary biologist working with faculty members to bring active and inclusive learning methods to their classrooms, and leads the CFE’s initiatives for faculty new to UNC. She also serves as the co-facilitator for the Faculty Administrator Development Program.

Claude Clegg is the Lyle V. Jones Distinguished Professor, with a joint appointment in the Departments of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies and History. Professor Clegg’s work focuses on the African diaspora of the Atlantic world, exploring the ways in which people of African descent have created and imagined communities and identities outside Africa. He teaches courses in African American history and U.S. history, with particular emphasis on the themes of migration, diaspora, nationalism, and social mobilization.

Allison De Marco is an adjunct faculty at the School of Social Work and an advanced research scientist at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. Her research focuses on racial equity, poverty, neighborhood effects, work and family, and well-being for residents of rural communities. She examines issues of economic transitions and family work conditions and their effects on families in rural communities.

Victoria “Tori” Smith Ekstrand is an associate professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, where she teaches courses on media law. Her research explores conflicts between copyright law and the First Amendment, particularly as they arise in journalism and social media. Her work is often grounded in critical legal theory, in which she examines the impact of law and policy on culture and media production.

Luca Flabbi is an associate professor in the UNC Department of Economics. Dr. Flabbi is an applied microeconomist and econometrician with expertise in labor/population economics and in applied econometric methods.

Kurt Gray is an associate professor in psychology and neuroscience, director of the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. He is also an adjunct associate professor in organizational behavior at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he teaches about organizational ethics and team processes. Professor Gray researches how we perceive the minds of others and make moral judgments.

Suzanne Gulledge is a clinical professor in the School of Education. She specializes in curriculum and instruction, experiential and global education and ethics and education.

Fabian Heitsch is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy whose research interests range around astrophysical gas dynamics, or “IXM-physics”, where X stands for the letters (S,G,C). Currently, he and his students are working on models of the formation of molecular clouds and stars, the role of high velocity clouds for Galactic evolution, how to translate simulation results to the observational plane, and on some plasma-physics.

Marc Hetherington is a Raymond H. Dawson Distinguished Bicentennial Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. His focus is on the American electorate and the polarization of public opinion.

Osamudia James joined the UNC School of Law faculty in 2021. Her writing and teaching interests include education law, race and the law, administrative law, and torts. James is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and popular press commentary exploring the interaction of law and identity in the context of public education. Her work has appeared in the NYU Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Minnesota Law Review, among others, as well as in the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post.

Tanya Jisa is a clinical associate professor in the School of Social Work and a community education coordinator for the Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship Lab. Her research and professional interests include social entrepreneurship, social justice, racial equity, cooperative economics, and prison abolition.

Matthew Kotzen is an associate professor and department chair in the Department of Philosophy.  He has research interests in epistemology, philosophy of science, and related topics in philosophy of mind and language.

Lloyd Kramer is a professor in the Department of History and Directory of Carolina Public Humanities. His interests focus on Modern European History with an emphasis on nineteenth century France. He is particularly interested in historical processes that shape cultural identities, including the experiences of cross-cultural exchange and the emergence of modern nationalism. 

Jennifer Larson is a teaching assistant professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Her teaching and research interests include African-American literature (especially African American drama), film studies (especially race in contemporary cinema), American literature, and composition (especially writing in/about law).

Jon Lepofsky is a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Geography and the international education program coordinator for the Center of European Studies at UNC. He specializes in economic geography, urban geography, and community development.

Doug MacKay is an associate professor in the Department of Public Policy. His research and teaching interests concern questions at the intersection of justice and public policy. He is currently working on projects concerning the justice of economic inequality – both domestic and global; the ethics of immigration policy; priority setting in health care; the ethics of international clinical research; and justice in the division of responsibilities within federal systems of government.

Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, PhD RD, is the Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Nutrition and Medicine, and chair of the Department of Nutrition, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has focused her career on diabetes, including the epidemiology and natural history of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in children and adults. Her research addresses the many ways in which nutrition can impact on the risk for development of diabetes, and on the risk of complications of either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Studies have typically included culturally and regionally diverse populations. Dr. Mayer-Davis’ primary focus now is on type 1 diabetes in youth and young adults, with a focus on overall diabetes self-management and on energy balance and weight management for individuals with type 1 diabetes. Dr. Mayer-Davis is Principal Investigator for the Carolina site of the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study, and she serves as the national co-chairperson for this large multi-center study.

Kevin McGuire is a professor in the Department of Political science who teaches courses on the U.S. Supreme Court and American constitutional law. His current research interests include the effect of the Court’s institutional arrangements on the Court’s policymaking, the impact of public opinion on the Court, and the measurement and modeling of judicial outcomes. 

Aimee McHale is an assistant professor in the Public Health Leadership Program and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She is an attorney and public health professional with expertise in health policy and special interests in health equity, social justice, and the health needs of vulnerable populations, including in the LGBT community. 

Mark McNeilly is a professor of the practice of marketing at the Kenan-Flagler Business School. He teaches in the areas of marketing and organizational behavior in both the MBA and online MBA@UNC programs. McNeilly served as a global marketing executive and has several years of experience with both IBM and Lenovo in the IT industry. His business background includes branding, strategy, marketing, market intelligence, management, manufacturing and personnel.

Hugo Méndez is an Assistant Professor in Ancient Mediterranean Religions, specializing in the New Testament and its early reception He has sustained research interests in the Gospel and Epistles of John and the reception of biblical texts, figures, and images in late antiquity.

Michael Morgan is an associate professor in the Department of History. He specializes in modern international and global history, teaching courses on the history of diplomacy and international politics, the Cold War, and the history of human rights. 

Jason Roberts is a professor and acting department chair in the Department of Political Science. He specializes in American political institutions, with an emphasis on the U.S. Congress.

Tim Ryan is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. His research interests relate to public opinion, political behavior, and political psychology.

Keith Sawyer is the Morgan Distinguished Professor of Educational Innovations in the School of Education. His research focuses on improvisational group performance, and he applies rigorous quantitative methods to the analysis of moment-to-moment interactional dynamics in creative groups. In his current research, Sawyer is studying how teaching and learning are organized in professional schools of art and design, with the goal of identifying a core set of features that can be used to design more effective learning environments.

Aaron Shapiro is an assistant professor of technology studies in the Department of Communication. He researches and teaches about connections across technology, society, culture, and political economy, and especially technology’s relationship to urban space, infrastructure, and inequality. 

Lindsey Smith Taillie is an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition. She is a nutrition epidemiologist whose work focuses on evaluating food policy efforts in the US and globally, and how these influence disparities in diet and obesity. Her work uses a combination of randomized controlled trials and natural experimental studies using large datasets on food purchases and intake to evaluate and inform food policy to prevent obesity.

Lance Thurlow is an assistant professor in the Adams School of Dentistry. He is interested in defining the metabolic basis for bacterial virulence potential and understanding the metabolic reprogramming of innate immune cells required to prevent infection. He is also interested in how metabolic dynamics change during infections in populations at high risk for infection, such as individuals with diabetes.

Emma Tzioumis is an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and a research scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. She is interested in maternal and child nutrition, globally and locally. Her research includes the dual burden of malnutrition, complementary feeding practices, and maternal experiences in the perinatal period. She is involved in ongoing efforts to support and advance women in academia and improve faculty well-being.

Michael Vazquez is a teaching assistant professor and director of outreach for the Department of Philosophy. His research interests span ancient philosophy, ethics & moral philosophy, philosophy of education, and democratic theory. As an educator he specializes in experiential education & service-learning in higher education, pre-college pedagogy, learning across the lifespan, and civic education. He is committed to forging lasting, democratic, and collaborative partnerships between the academy and the community, and to cultivating the philosophical voices of people of all ages.

Kristin Wilson is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Kenan-Flagler Business School. Her research interests include strategy in regulated industries, financial services regulation, competitive strategy, business-government relations, and strategy and the institutional environment.

Courtney Wright is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Management and Corporate Communication and serves as the director of the Business Communication Center at the Kenan-Flagler Business School. She specializes in areas involving leadership and intercultural communication.