CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The Big Ten Academic Alliance recently announced the 2023-24 fellows for its Academic Leadership Program and Department Executive Officers Seminar. Eleven U. of I. faculty members have been selected to participate.
Led by the Committee on Executive Leadership, the BTAA offers the Academic Leadership Program, an intensive program to develop the leadership and managerial skills of faculty who have demonstrated exceptional ability and academic promise. Participants in the program attend a series of seminars throughout the year that are facilitated by leaders from Big Ten institutions. In addition to the seminars, fellows also participate in monthly meetings on the Urbana-Champaign campus that will familiarize them with campus leaders, units and strategic goals.
The following faculty from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been chosen to participate in the Academic Leadership Program for 2023-24.
Gopesh Anand is a professor of business administration and the William N. Scheffel Faculty Scholar and Deloitte Scholar in the Gies College of Business. He is the area chair for the Information Systems, Operations, Supply Chain and Analytics in the college. His research examines how firms manage the quality of their products through process control and improvement, and incorporates elements of standardized work practices, transformational leadership, employee engagement, and outsourcing. He received a Master of Business Administration and a doctorate from The Ohio State University.
Zeynep Madak-Erdogan is the Sylvian D. Stroup Scholar of Nutrition and Cancer and a professor of nutritional sciences and food science and human nutrition in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. She is an associate dean at the Graduate College and is the associate director for education in the Cancer Center at Illinois. She has received several awards, including a postdoctoral fellowship from a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Training Grant in Endocrine Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology, the Women in Endocrinology Young Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society, the Bio-Serv Experimental Nutrition Award from the American Society for Nutrition, and she was named a Future Research Leader and a Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar by the National Institutes of Health. Madak-Erdogan is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Endocrine Society and a member of the board of reviewing editors for Science.
Jonathan Makela is the Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also serves as the associate dean for undergraduate programs in the Grainger College of Engineering. His research interests include developing and deploying optical and radio instrumentation to study Earth’s near-space environment. He received his doctorate from Cornell University.
Kathryn Martensen currently serves as associate provost for educational programs and success initiatives in the Office of the Provost. In this role, she provides oversight of the academic unit, program and course approval processes, including the General Education Board. She manages student success-related activities, including the Student Success @ Illinois Steering Team and Student Advisory Board. She has 20 years of experience in academic advising and higher education administration and is a two-time graduate from Illinois.
Dan Newman is the Wagner Professor of the School of Labor and Employment Relations and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where he teaches statistics and HR analytics. His research addresses diversity/equity in hiring and admissions. He received the Academy of Management HR Scholarly Achievement Award and the Research Methods Early Career Award. He was elected to 17 terms on his department’s executive committee and served on or chaired numerous committees on faculty hiring, promotion, diversity and graduate admissions.
Dana Rabin is a professor of history in the College of LAS. Her scholarship focuses on 18th-century Britain and its empire. Her current project is a study of Jewish civil rights throughout the British Empire. She teaches global history, British history, the history of crime, and the history of the University of Illinois. Rabin has served as chair of her department since 2019. She received her doctorate from the University of Michigan.
Department Executive Officers Seminar
The Department Executive Officers Seminar brings together department heads and chairs from across the Big Ten. Individuals participate in training and professional development workshops on topics including leadership styles, group decision-making and staff management. In the past, the seminar has featured sessions on faculty development, resource allocation and topics in human resources. Each year, the seminar includes approximately 65 department executive officers.
The following Illinois department executive officers have been chosen to participate in 2023-24.
Anne Barger is the department head of Veterinary Clinical Medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine . She is a veterinarian and a board-certified clinical pathologist. Her research interests include immunocytochemistry and canine osteosarcoma.
Becky Fuller is head of the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior in the School of Integrative Biology in the College of LAS. An evolutionary biologist, she studies fish, with an emphasis on speciation and the evolution of visual systems. She received her master’s degree at Michigan State University and doctorate from Florida State University. She previously served as the director of graduate studies and currently serves in a leadership role in the Society for the Study of Evolution and the American Society of Naturalists.
Sara Hook is head of the Department of Dance in the College of Fine and Applied Arts. She received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010 and the Campus Award for Excellence in Faculty Mentoring in 2020. Hook holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, a master’s degree from New York University, and certification as a movement analyst from the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York. She has performed internationally, and her choreography has been produced in venues across North America, South America and Europe.
Sarah Low is head of the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics in the College of ACES. She is passionate about leading faculty from diverse research areas in pursuit of the land-grant mission. Her collaborative approach and willingness to chart new territory have led to success in unique and challenging situations. Her research emphasizes how to support and facilitate regional economic development and prioritizes policy-relevant issues, drawing on her experience in federal government.
Reuben A. Buford May is the Florian Znaniecki Professorial Scholar and head of the Department of Sociology in the College of LAS. He is also a Center for Social and Behavioral Science affiliate. He has been a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., visiting professor at MIT. May received his doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago and works in the areas of community and urban sociology; racial and ethnic minorities; and race, gender and class.