SEC Academic Leadership Development Program fellows engage in discussions and development initiatives designed to deepen their capacity to think and act effectively as future leaders in the academy. Texas A&M selects four faculty annually to participate in this conference-wide initiative.
Texas A&M's 2023-2024 SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows
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Home College/School: School of Public Health
Bio: Dr. Adam E. Barry serves as the Department Head for the Department of Health Behavior in
the School of Public Health at Texas A&M University. Prior to that, Barry served as the Interim
Department Head for the Department of Health & Kinesiology. HLKN, at that time, was the largest
academic unit at Texas A&M, based on undergraduate student major headcount - home to approximately
3,500 undergraduate students, 316 graduate students, 103 faculty members, and 32 staff members.
While a faculty member in HLKN, Barry had a long history of serving in academic leadership
positions, including Chair of Graduate Education Programs, Division Chair for Health Education,
Associate Department Head, and Interim Department Head. Throughout these roles, Barry
provided leadership to academic units ranging from 20-100 faculty; managed budgets ranging
from $3-$17 million; facilitated all matters associated with faculty affairs, annual evaluation, and
tenure and promotion for both academic professional track (teaching-focused) and tenure-track
(research-focused) faculty; actively mentored junior and mid-career faculty; created and managed
an academic teaching schedule to accommodate 1,500 undergrads; and oversaw more than 300
graduate students across a variety of academic programs (health education, kinesiology, and sports
management).
Barry was named an Administrative Fellow with the former Office of the Dean of Faculties at Texas A&M for the 2020-2021 academic year. In recognition of his scholarship, Barry was named a Presidential Impact
Fellow at TAMU in 2019.
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Home College/School: School of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts
Bio: Dr. Ann McNamara is the Associate Dean for Research & Creative works and a Professor in the
School of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on
advancing computer graphics and scientific visualization through novel approaches for optimizing
an individual’s experience when creating, viewing, and interacting with virtual and augmented
spaces. The novelty of her research lies in the use of perceptual measures including eye-tracking to
enhance, optimize, and customize a range of visual applications from single to multi-screen systems
to mobile applications to fully immersive displays.
She collaborates on a diverse set of projects, including investigating the effects of virtual reality
on health, education, optimizing user interfaces for astronauts and designing virtual training for
the future of work. She is the director of a new interdisciplinary lab on data visualization, data
physicalization, and information design with support from the Texas A&M Institute for Data
Science. In 2018, McNamara was named one of 21 Presidential Impact Fellows and is the holder of
the R. Bowen Loftin Interdisciplinary Professor in Visualization.
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Home College/School: School of Law
Bio: Srividhya Ragavan is a Professor of Law & Director of International Legal Program at the Texas A&M School of Law and is a member of the law school’s Center for Learning Intellectual Property Rights. Ragavan enabled the law school to lead as an international brand for educational initiatives in South Asia.
Ragavan, a Fulbright Nehru CORE Scholar, a Fulbright Specialist for the South Asia Region
and a recipient of the GIAN grant from the government of India, serves on numerous boards
of law schools in India. She has used this vantage to invite high-profile visitors by organizing
conferences/panels at the law school, online and in foreign countries thus contributing to
improving the diversity of the graduate class at the law school. Ragavan has been pivotal to
creating relationships for the law school with foreign universities through different programs
with a view to position Texas A&M as an important destination for law graduates abroad.
Ragavan identified and helped create the online LL.M. in Cross-Border Advocacy Program focused
on South Asia, which has helped Texas A&M establish a unique footprint as the first major foreign
university offering an online law degree focused on South Asia. Texas A&M University recognized
Ragavan’s contributions by naming her the ADVANCE Champion in 2021.
Ragavan’s scholarship brings together three areas of expertise: access to medications and health;
intellectual property; and trade and development. She has authored books with Oxford and
Cambridge University Press and impactful law reviews found in the SSRN and BePress pages.
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Home College/School: The Bush School of Government & Public Service
Bio: Dr. Lori L. Taylor is Head of the Public Service and Administration Department and holds the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Business and Government at the Bush School of Government and
Public Service at Texas A&M University. Taylor also currently serves as a member of the Steering
Committee of Texas A&M’s Department Head Council.
Her previous administrative responsibilities at Texas A&M include serving as the Director of the Bush
School’s Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics and Public Policy; as Treasurer of the Women’s
Faculty Network; as a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Principal Investigators;
and as co-chair for research as part of Texas A&M's Master Plan Steering Committee.
Taylor has also served in administrative roles with a number of professional organizations. She was
recently reappointed to the Board of Governors for the Regional Education Laboratory Southwest,
an evidence-to-practice collaborative administered by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute
for Education Sciences. She also served two separately elected terms on the Board of Directors for
the Association for Education Finance and Policy, a scholarly organization in her primary research
field.
Taylor holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rochester. She earned both a B.A. in
economics and a B.S. in business administration from the University of Kansas. Prior to joining the
Bush School, Taylor spent 14 years as an economist and policy advisor in the Research Department
of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Call for Nominations
Eligibility
- Current faculty member with successful leadership experience and future leader potential (dean, provost and president level)
- Must be nominated by current dean of the nominee's college/school
Nominations
- One-page nomination describing:
- nominee's leadership experience and success
- reasons that the fellow program will be beneficial for nominee's career development
- Nominee's current CV
Expectations
Fellows participate in:
- on-campus leadership development throughout the year
- meetings at other SEC institutions twice during the year.
2024-2025 Nomination Deadline
Previous SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows
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- Dr. Karen Kirkland, Associate Head of the Department of Nuclear Engineering (College of Engineering)
- Dr. Lucas M. Macri, Associate Dean of Undergraduate & International Programs (College of Science)
- Dr. Frederick M. Nafukho, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs (College of Education and Human Development)
- Dr. Tiffany A. Radcliff, Associate Dean for Research (School of Public Health)
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- Dr. Carlos Blanton, Head of the Department of History (College of Liberal Arts)
- Dr. Clare Gill, Executive Associate Dean (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Dr. Shanna Hagan-Burke, Head of the Department of Educational Psychology (College of Education and Human Development)
- Dr. Sarah Witherspoon, Head of the Department of Mathematics (College of Liberal Arts)
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- Dr. Mindy Bergman, Executive Director of Interdisciplinary Critical Studies, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (College of Liberal Arts)
- Dr. Carol Bunch-Davis, Assistant Department Head, Department of Liberal Arts (Texas A&M University at Galveston)
- Professor Terri Helge, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (School of Law)
- Dr. Scott Schaefer, Associate Department Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (College of Engineering)
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- Dr. Michael D. Johnson, Associate Professor and the Walter Buchanan Faculty Fellow, Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution (College of Engineering)
- Dr. Michael A. de Miranda, Claude H. Everett Endowed Chair and Head of the Deartment of Teaching, Learning and Culture (School of Education & Human Development)
- Dr. Joseph D. Ura, Associate Head of the Department of Political Science (Bush School of Government & Public Service)
- Dr. Heather H. Wilkinson, Associate Dean of Faculties for Faculty Development (Office of the Dean of Faculties)
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- Dr. David M. Cairns, Head of the Department of Geography (College of Geosciences)
- Dr. Cecilia H. Giusti, Associate Dean for Outreach and Diversity (College of Architecture)
- Dr. Mark B. Houston, Head of the Marketing Department (Mays Business School)
- Dr. Antonietta Quigg, Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies (College of Geosciences and Texas A&M University at Galveston)
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- Dr. Ginger E. Carney, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Research and College
Climate (College of Science) - Dr. John E. Hurtado, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (Dwight Look College of Engineering)
- Dr. Violet Showers Johnson, Director of Africana Studies Program (College of Liberal Arts)
- Dr. Kathleen Kavanagh, Head of the Ecosystem Science and Management Department (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Dr. Ginger E. Carney, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Research and College
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- Dr. Richard Kreider, Head of the Department of Health & Kinesiology (School of Education & Human Development)
- Dr. Kirsten Pullen, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Performance Studies (College of Liberal Arts)
- Dr. David Threadgill, Director of the Whole Systems Genomics Initiative
- Dr. Douglas Woods, Head of the Department of Psychology (College of Liberal Arts)
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- Dr. George Cunningham, Associate Dean (College of Education & Human Development)
- Dr. Sumana Datta, Executive Director of Honors & Undergraduate Research, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Dr. Rosana G. Moreira, Assistant Department Head, Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Dr. John N. Stallone, Acting Head of the Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology (College of Veterinary Medice & Biomedical Sciences)
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- Dr. Michael Benedik, Interim Dean of Faculties and Associate Provost
- Dr. Blanca Lupiani, Associate Dean of Faculties
- Dr. Cesar Malave, Head of the Department of Industrial and System Engineering (College of Engineering)
- Dr. Cynthia Werner, Head of the Department of Anthropology (College of Liberal Arts)