Michael Terry is an associate professor in the Department of Linguistics and adjunct associate professor in the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He researches the structure of dialects and the implications of dialectal differences for linguistic theory and educational practice.

Dave Pier specializes in music, art, literature, and cultural politics in Africa and the African diaspora. His book, Ugandan Music in the Marketing Era, is an ethnographic study of folklore performance, corporate arts sponsorship, branding, and grassroots entrepreneurialism in contemporary Uganda. Currently, he is researching kadongo kamu, a Ugandan guitar-based pop music genre. He is also writing about the development of modern/contemporary dance in this country. Pier serves on the editorial board for the journal African Arts, as well as on the advisory board for UNC’s Process Series. He teaches Introduction to Africa, Music of Africa, Music of African Diasporas, Politics of Cultural Production in Africa, and a freshman seminar on Afrofuturism. As a jazz pianist, he has performed and recorded with Clark Terry, Jane Monheit, Roswell Rudd, Marcus Belgrave, and other jazz luminaries.

Tanya Shields is an Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. Dr. Shields believes that teaching should engage students’ everyday lives by helping them make connections between the past and the present. Her research area is the Caribbean, specifically literature and its role in Caribbean belonging.

After completing her BA in Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, where Professor Priscilla Layne concentrated on German and English literature, she spent three years in Germany. She received both a Fulbright TA fellowship and a scholarship from the Study Foundation of the Berlin Parliament. In 2005, Professor Layne continued her studies at the University of California at Berkeley where she received her MA in 2006 and PhD in 2011. In fall 2011, she joined the faculty of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Michelle Haskin is an Assistant Teaching Professor who strives to facilitate undergraduate learning through equitable pedagogical practices and collaborative learning. She has an interest in metacognition and applying learning strategies to help students discover new ways to approach and reframe their learning. She has taught over 2300 UNC students and looks forward to teaching many more.

Maxine Eichner, the Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law, writes on issues at the intersection of law and political theory, focusing particularly on family relationships, social welfare law and policy; feminist theory; sexuality; and the relationship of the family, the workplace, and market forces. Professor Eichner is the author of The Supportive State: Families, Government, and America’s Political Ideals (Oxford University Press, 2010). She is now finishing a second book, The Free-Market Family: How the Market Crushed the American Dream (and How It Can Be Restored), which considers the harsh effects that market forces are having on American families today, and which argues that the government’s role is to shield families from these forces. She is also an editor of Family Law: Cases, Text, Problems (eds., Ellman, Kurtz, Weithorn, Bix, Czapanskiy, and Eichner, 2014). In addition, she has written numerous articles and chapters for law reviews, peer-reviewed journals, and edited volumes on law and political theory.

Cary Levine is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History. His first book, Pay for Your Pleasures: Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Raymond Pettibon, examines the work of three important Southern California artists. His second book, The Future is Present: Art, Technology, and the Work of Mobile Image focuses on the intersections of art, politics, and technology. He was a 2020 recipient of the Art Journal Award and a 2014 recipient of the Hettleman Prize for Scholarly Achievement at UNC. He has lectured nationally and internationally, has written for various magazines and museum catalogues, and previously worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Anna Bardone-Cone, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. She graduated from Williams College with a BA in Mathematics and French, received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and completed her predoctoral clinical psychology internship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. Her research interests are in eating disorders and body image, in particular: 1) defining eating disorder recovery; 2) identifying and testing pathways to disordered eating with particular interest in the role played by psychosocial variables (e.g., perfectionism, self-efficacy, social comparison, stress) and how these variables interact; and 3) examining cultural, familial, and media factors related to disordered eating and body image.

Much of Yaakov Ariel’s research has focused on Protestantism, especially Evangelical Christianity, and its attitudes towards the Jewish people and the Holy Land; on Christian-Jewish relations in the late modern era; and on the Jewish reaction to modernity and postmodernity. He has published numerous articles and three books on these subjects. One of these books, Evangelizing the Chosen People, was awarded the Albert C. Outler prize by the American Society of Church History. His latest book, An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews, was published in 2013 by New York University Press. His current project looks at the religious aspects in the life and career of poet Allen Ginsberg who was, in significant ways, a pioneer and prophet to many of his generation.

Peter Gordon’s field is the psychology of language and his interests in that field are very broad. Right now his basic research focuses on several topics related to word recognition and to higher levels of language comprehension. These include: the nature of the memory processes involved in understanding complex sentences, the interaction between lexical and higher-levels of language processing, and the coordination of language processing with more general mechanisms of memory, perception, attention, and motor control. Research on these topics in his laboratory uses two primary methods, eye-tracking during reading and measurement of event-related potentials (ERPs).

Afroz Taj’s research and teaching center around South Asian media, with emphasis on the film industry and television. His book, The Court of Indra and the Rebirth of North Indian Drama, explores the origins of the Urdu-Hindi musical theater in mid-nineteenth century Lucknow. His current book project focuses on the dynamics of the transition from the Parsi theater to early sound films in the 1920s and 1930s. He is also interested in the aesthetics of cinema, filmmaking techniques and technologies, and the history of Bollywood. While researching the history of Indian cinema he began to collect past issues of Shama magazine; in his next project, he will trace the impact of Shama on South Asian popular culture, including its visual and verbal constructions of gender identity in twentieth-century India and Pakistan.
Dr. Taj is also a creative writer: he has written, published, and recited his ghazals, geet, dohe, and short stories in Urdu and Hindi. Over the past ten years, he have undertaken to film interviews with important literary figures of South Asia, and he has made a number of short films in conjunction with the Door Into Hindi and Darvazah language-learning websites. His interest in media has enabled him to pioneer the use of new technologies and multimedia resources in language teaching.

John Bruno is a marine ecologist and Professor in the Department of Biology. His research is focused on marine biodiversity and macroecology, coral reef ecology and conservation, and the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. He earned his Ph.D. from Brown University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University in disease ecology. His lab group primarily works in the Galápagos and the Caribbean – including Belize, the Bahamas, and Cuba. He is also a science communicator and co-developer of the oceans website SeaMonster.

Caela O’Connell is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program. She got hooked on researching farmers and the environment in particular while studying Spanish at the Universidad de Habana in Cuba. Dr. O’Connell runs the Socio-Ecological Change Research Lab (SECR Lab) at UNC investigating different aspects of sustainability, agriculture, inequality, water, disasters, adaptation, crisis and environmental conservation and partnering with community organizations for engaged scholarship. Her work is primarily in the Caribbean and North and South America. When not thinking about the future for farming and our global environment, Dr. O'Connel enjoys cooking, baking for friends, hiking (nothing too steep), taekwondo, tracking hurricanes, and traveling with her family.

Anna Krome-Lukens is a Teaching Associate Professor in Public Policy. Her research focuses on the history of welfare and public health policies. She teaches courses about the intersection of policy and history, including “Why History Matters to Public Policy” and a first-year seminar on higher education policy. She also directs the UNC Public Policy Capstone program, facilitating the work of student teams who do policy analysis for non-profits and government agencies. She loves thinking about how the history of food systems shapes their possible futures, and she also loves cheese.

Matthew G. Springer is an interdisciplinary policy scholar by training and studies educational innovations and policies for improving system effectiveness and access to educational opportunities. Matt consults widely with government agencies and international organizations, including the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Government Accountability Office, the National Governor’s Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the United Kingdom and Mexico governments, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He has taught courses on the history and current trends in higher education, educator policy, education finance, research methods and causal inference, policy analysis, reading and writing academic research, and public policymaking. Matt’s research has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN’s Top of the Hour, National Public Radio, and The New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. He is a managing partner at Basis Policy Research, an applied research and technical assistance firm with offices in Denver, Co, Grand Rapids, MI, and Hillsborough, NC. Before joining Basis, Matt was the Hussman Distinguished Professor of Education Reform at UNC and an education and public policy faculty member at Vanderbilt University.

Formally trained as a marine geologist, Jeff Warren has spent the past 17 and a half years in State-level science policy positions including the coastal hazards policy specialist for the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management (2004 to 2010), the science advisor for the North Carolina Senate (2011 to 2017) and, most recently, the research director and now executive director for the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory headquartered at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2017 to present). Warren earned his BSc in geological sciences from the University of Arizona (1994), his MSc in geology from Auburn University (1997), and his PhD in geological sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2006). Warren’s academic research included field sites in the southeastern US, northern Mexico, the East and South China Seas, and Antarctica for which he received the Antarctica Service medal of the United States of America from the National Science Foundation. In addition to his primary duties at UNC Chapel Hill with the Collaboratory, Warren has also been appointed a Professor of Practice in the Department of Public Policy.

Chris Lundberg is a professor of rhetoric, a political consultant, and a corporate communications strategist. He is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at UNC Chapel Hill, where he writes about and teaches courses in public speaking, debate, persuasive communication and political rhetoric.
His academic work includes multiple books and award-winning articles on rhetoric, speech, and persuasion, including: The Essential Guide to Rhetoric (Bedford St. Martin’s, 2008, 2e 2017); Public Speaking: Choices and Responsibility (Cengage Publishers, 2014, 2e 2016, 3e 2022); and a book about the psychology of public persuasion called Lacan in Public: Psychoanalysis and the Science of Rhetoric (University of Alabama Press, 2012). He has served as a debate and messaging consultant for numerous US Senate races, gubernatorial campaigns, and cabinet-level confirmation processes. His international work features extensive work in the United Kingdom, including work on the UK Prime Ministership, the Scottish leadership election, and consulting services for the “Vote Leave” campaign during the EU referendum. He is also the founder and CEO of Vocable Communications, a speech focused and data-driven communication consultancy serving senior leadership at multiple fortune 500 corporations. He received his Ph.D. in rhetoric from Northwestern University’s School of Communication in 2006, and his Master of Divinity from Emory University in 2000. In addition to his experience in the classroom and with consulting clients, he has over fifteen years of experience in speech and debate coaching, serving most recently as a coach and argument consultant for Harvard University. He has coached national championship intercollegiate debate teams at four separate universities (Liberty University, Emory University, Northwestern University, and Harvard University), and has coached multiple competitors to the top individual speaker award at the National Debate Tournament.

Sofia Aliaga is a Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine, Director of Interprofessional Education and Practice for the School of Medicine, Director of the School of Medicine Simulation, Experiential Learning and Training Center, and associate program director for the pediatric residency. Sofia is committed to advancing simulation to support interprofessional education in health care. Sofia completed her medical school training in Lima, Peru and is bilingual in Spanish and English. She completed her pediatric residency training at the University of Colorado and The Children’s Hospital of Colorado. She has been a Tar Heel since moving to the area for her neonatology subspecialty training in 2007. During that time, she also completed a Master of Public Health degree. Sofia is looking forward to teaching this course and continuing to grow the Relational Leadership community.

Meg Zomorodi is a Professor in the School of Nursing and Associate Provost for Interprofessional Health Initiatives. In her role in the Provost office, she oversees the Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice and the Office of Health Professions Advising. Meg has a passion for teaching, especially across disciplines and teaches courses and guest lectures in a variety of courses across campus. A double Tar Heel—Meg has both graduate and undergraduate degrees from UNC Chapel Hill and believes that the best way to lead is to form connections and establish relationships. In her current role, she builds opportunities for collaboration across health professions, engages with rural communities to support workforce needs, and works with different groups to build infrastructure for change. She likes to build stuff---and loves puzzles and problem solving. Meg is excited to teach this course as it is a way to share the Relational Leadership framework with students and to help empower the change agents of the future.