Academic Leadership Series

The Provost’s Office of Faculty Development and Diversity hosts the Academic Leadership Series for Cornell’s tenured faculty holding leadership positions, such as chairs and associate deans, and those aspiring to advance into leadership positions.

Meeting several times a semester, the Academic Leadership Series gives participants opportunities to engage with university leaders discussing such topics as strategic planning, funding a university enterprise, career pathways, and managing conflict. Each session is designed with an action-learning pedagogy.

Participants are nominated by their deans and may self-nominate with their chair and dean’s approval. Nominations for the 2025-26 academic year will be available in March 2025.

Listed below are participating faculty:

2024 Participants

Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy
Jeff Niederdeppe, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development; Co-Director, Cornell Center for Health Equity, and Professor of Communication, Department of Communication, CALS

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Lori Leonard, Chair and Professor, Department of Global Development
Drew Margolin, Associate Professor, Department of Communication

College of Arts and Sciences
Christy Goodale, Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor in Environmental Science, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Deborah Starr, Chair and Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies

Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science
Thorsten Joachims, Associate Dean for Research, and Jacob Gould Schurman Professor, Department of Computer Science
Fred Schneider, Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science
Eva Tardos, Chair and Jacob Gould Schurman Professor, Department of Computer Science

College of Engineering
Christopher A. Alabi, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Ilana Brito, Associate Professor, Mong Family Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in Biomedical Engineering, Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering
Jonathan Butcher, Professor, Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering
Chris Schaffer, Professor, Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering
Zhiting Tian, Associate Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
David P. Williamson, Professor, School of Operations Research and Information Engineering and Information Science

College of Human Ecology
Angela Odoms-Young, Associate Professor, Division of Nutritional Science, College of Human Ecology; Director, Food and Nutrition Education in Communities Program; and Director, New York State Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program

ILR School
Shannon Gleeson, Edmund Ezra Day Professor of Labor Relations, Law and History, and Chair, Department of Global Labor and Work, and Professor, Brooks School of Public Policy

SC Johnson College of Business
Suzanne Shu, John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and Dean of Faculty and Research

College of Veterinary Medicine
Paula Cohen, Professor of Genetics; Director, Center for Reproductive Genomics and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education
Diego Diehl, Associate Professor in Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Science, and Director, Animal Health Diagnostic Center