Committees

Cully Stimson – Rector
Mike Meese – Vice Rector
Armand Alacbay – Secretary
Bob Pence – Member-At-Large
Vacant – Member-At-Large

Lindsey Burke, Chair
Nancy Prowitt, Vice Chair
Mike Meese
Jeff Rosen
Melissa A. Broeckelman-Post, Faculty Representative
Cameron Harris, Faculty Representative
Jim Antony, Provost and Executive Vice President

Dolly Oberoi, Chair
Armand Alacbay, Vice Chair
Horace Blackman
Reg Brown
Mike Meese
Edward Douthett, Faculty Liaison
Ed Dittmeier, Vice President and Chief Audit and Compliance Officer

Jon Peterson, Chair
Anjan Chimaladinne, Vice Chair
Reg Brown
Dolly Oberoi
Bob Pence
Bijan Jabbari, Faculty Representative
Susan Allen, Faculty Representative
Trishana Bowden, Vice President, University Advancement & Alumni Relations

(Parentheses note current year in two-year term)
Bob Pence, Chair (2/2)
Jeff Rosen, Vice Chair (2/2)
Armand Alacbay (1/2)
Jon Peterson (2/2)
Debra Lattanzi Shutika, Faculty Representative
Mohan Venigalla, Faculty Representative
Deb Dickenson, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration

Nancy Prowitt, Chair
Horace Blackman, Vice Chair
Lindsey Burke
Anjan Chimaladinne
Tara M. Chaplin, Faculty Representative
Igor Mazin, Faculty Representative
Andre Marshall, Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact

Athletics Liaisons – Horace Blackman and Bob Pence
Faculty Senate Liaison – Armand Alacbay
Law School Liaison – Reg Brown and Jeff Rosen
Legislative Liaisons – Jon Peterson

At all Committees:
Cully Stimson, Rector
Gregory Washington, President
Maria Cuesta, Undergraduate Student Representative
Carolyn Faith Hoffman, Graduate Student Representative
Solon Simmons, Faculty Representative
Rachel Spence, Staff Liaison

Melissa A. Broeckelman-Post is a Professor and the Director of Fundamentals of Communication and Graduate Student Pedagogical Development in the Department of Communication at George Mason University.  She earned a B.A. in English, a Graduate Certificate in Technical Writing and Professional Communication, and M.A. in Speech Rhetoric and Communication from Kansas State University.  She earned a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Ohio University and was an Assistant Professor and Basic Course Coordinator and T.A. Supervisor at California State University, Los Angeles, for four years before beginning her faculty role at Mason.

As Director of Fundamentals of Communication and Graduate Student Pedagogical Development, Dr. Broeckelman-Post is responsible for planning, supervising, assessing, and improving the communication courses that meet the general education requirement at GMU.  Each year, she is responsible for recruiting, training, and supervising a staff of 45-50 instructors who teach 4500-5000 undergraduate students per year in these courses.  As part of this role, she also established the Communication Center in 2018, which became part of the new Lab for Writing and Communication in Fall 2021.  In 2016, her program was the recipient of the NCA Basic Course Division Program of Excellence Award, which recognizes introductory communication course programs that can serve as best practice models for programs across the country.  In 2015, she was the recipient of the NCA Basic Course Division Textbook of Distinction Award for the textbook that she extensively adapted to meet the specific needs to GMU’s students, instructors, and program.  Dr. Broeckelman-Post also served as the co-chair of the Social Science Research Council’s Measuring College Learning Project Panel on Public Speaking and was a co-recipient of a National Communication Association Advancing the Discipline Grant for A National-Level Assessment of Core Competencies in the Basic Communication Course.   She was also the recipient of the John Toups Medal for Excellence in Teaching in 2021, George Mason University’s highest teaching honor.

Dr. Broeckelman-Post’s research includes applied and integrative research that helps to answer key questions about how to most effectively communicate in the classroom (instructional communication) and how to most effectively teach communication skills (communication education), at times by borrowing from and intersecting with research in other disciplines. Most of this research is also done to answer practical questions about how we can best serve our students in the introductory course and to test innovations that directly shape what we do in the classroom.  Broeckelman-Post is the co-author of 39 peer-reviewed journal articles and three national communication textbooks (Inclusive Public Speaking, The Speaker’s Primer, and Communication Pathways), and more than 20 other chapters and invited articles.  She has also served on the editorial boards of Communication Education (currently as Consulting Editor for Forums), Communication Teacher, The Basic Communication Course Annual, Journal of Communication Pedagogy, Western Journal of Communication, and the Texas Speech Communication Journal.

Dr. Broeckelman-Post has served on George Mason University’s Faculty Senate since 2014 and has served on the Executive Committee since 2018.  She was Faculty Senate President from 2021-2024.  She has served on the Mason Core Committee from 2013-2021 (including as co-chair), continues to serve on the Mason Core Assessment Council, served as chair of Nominations from 2018-2021, and co-chaired the Task Force on Reimagining Faculty Roles and Rewards.  Additionally, she has served on the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Curriculum and Pedagogy Subcommittee, the ADVANCE Advisory Committee, the Faculty Interests Working Group for Online University Expansion, and many other committees, task forces, and working groups.

Cameron J. Harris, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Assistant Area Chair in the School of Business and Faculty Fellow in the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning at George Mason University. He has served on the Mason COACHE Leadership team and the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Teaching Consulting Committee. He was a member of the School of Business Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Taskforce and the Faculty Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. Cameron’s professional involvement includes the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education, where he has served as chair of the diversity committee and chair of the Stanley Award for Diversity and Inclusion Research in Educational Development.

Cameron holds both a master’s and doctorate in higher education administration and has taught and co-taught undergraduate and graduate courses related to diversity in leadership. His research focuses on the experiences of underrepresented doctoral students, faculty, and teaching and learning issues.

Bijan Jabbari is a professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of College of Engineering and Computing at George Mason University.  He is also an affiliated faculty with Telecom Paris-Tech in France. Dr. Jabbari’s areas of specialization and interests are in wireless communications and is recognized internationally for his contributions to the field of wireless networks through research, standardization, patents and publishing books, articles in refereed journals and conferences.  His patents are being deployed in the LTE and 5G wireless. He continues funded research through grants from US Research agencies including NSF.

He received PhD and MS degree from Stanford University, California, in Electrical Engineering. In addition, he obtained a MS degree in Management Science and Engineering also from Stanford University.  He is a Fellow of IEEE, IET Fellow and received the IEEE Millennium Medal. He is a recipient of the Washington DC Metropolitan Area Engineer of the Year Award and received the VSE Outstanding Faculty Research Award.  Dr. Jabbari has helped industry and governments as an advisor and has been involved in different aspects of the Intellectual Property matters both development of patents as well as an expert witness assisting major law firms and their clients in patent infringement cases in wireless technology, communications services, Internet and software. He is a member of the Mason Faculty Senate. In addition, he is also a volunteer in civic and humanitarian activities as well as the community.   He is one of the co-founders of the American Heart Association’s annual charity event, which in the past 20 years has brought over $20 million for research to this association.

Dr. Susan H. Allen is the Henry Hart Rice Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Director of the Center for Peacemaking Practice and also currently serves as the Director of the Graduate Programs at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. She earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University, was Senior Program Associate for Conflict Resolution at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and taught at American University. She is a parent to a current Mason undergraduate student. She previously served on the Faculty Senate.

Dr. Allen’s conflict resolution research focuses on learning from conflict resolution practice, through evaluation, action research, reflective practice and engaged scholarship. She is a scholar-practitioner and author of the book Interactive Peacemaking: A People-Centered Approach (Routledge, 2022), as well as numerous articles. She has co-edited multiple books and thematic journal issues, including on zones of peace and on practicing conflict resolution within the academy. She is an Associate Editor of the journal International Negotiation.

Dr. Allen’s work has been supported by generous philanthropic support, multiple grants, awards, and partnerships with leading conflict resolution practitioners, bringing over $4 million in funding to GMU. She was a co-founder of the Conveners’ Community of Practice, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and the Alliance for Conflict Transformation. She held the Peace Scholar award from the US Institute for Peace for her dissertation research and a Fulbright Scholar award that supported the completion of her recent book. Dr. Allen is an expert on conflict resolution in the South Caucasus, and on track two and track one-and-a-half diplomacy.

Debra Lattanzi Shutika is a folklorist and Associate Professor of English. She is the author of Beyond the Borderlands: Migration and Belonging in the United States and Mexico (2011, University of California Press) which won the 2012 Chicago Folklore Prize. She is the director of the Mason-Library of Congress Field School for Cultural Documentation. Her current research is an ethnographic study of community gardens in District of Columbia National Parks funded by the National Park Service. A Fulbright scholar to Ireland (2022-23), Dr. Lattanzi Shutika completed a folklore collection in the Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) communities of Achill and Erris exploring women’s traditional agricultural practices.  She teaches classes in folklore, ethnography, Appalachian studies, Irish folklore and culture, digital storytelling, and sense of place.

Mohan Venigalla is an associate professor in Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering of Volgenau School of Engineering. He specializes in transportation systems analysis and planning with research emphases on sustainable transportation and macroscopic traffic flow. His early career (for 12 years) was primarily in engineering consulting and research. He has been engaged in his present teaching and academic research career since 2000.

Venigalla’s expertise includes modeling of transportation systems encompassing travel behavior analysis, travel demand modeling, land use transportation, traffic simulation, network analysis, and intelligent transportation systems. His current and prior works covered a range of topics on transportation planning, air quality, transit-oriented developments, shared mobility, and urban freight planning. His skillset includes traditional quantitative and statistical methods, geographic information systems, data mining, and big data analytics. He has developed and applied numerous computer models for solving various transportation planning and traffic engineering problems.

Venigalla’s research funding since 2000 topped $2.8 million. His publications include more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, two book chapters, and 38 significant technical reports. He developed or taught 16 different courses and graduated seven Ph.D. students under his supervision. He administered the undergraduate civil engineering program at George Mason University and was primarily responsible for increasing the enrollments four-fold (from 73 to 295) in an 8-year period.

Venigalla’s research on air quality received national acclaim and was recognized by the National Academy of Sciences with the prestigious Pyke Johnson Award. He was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and is a registered professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He has been recently appointed as a Faculty Fellow at the Office of the Secretary of Transportation in the US Department of Transportation.

Mohan serves as a faculty representative to the Finance and Land Use Committee.

Igor Mazin joined GMU in November 2019 as a Professor of Advanced Studies in Theoretical Physics, after retiring from the US Navy with over 20 years of service at the Naval Research Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow in 1984, where he studied under Nobel Laureate Vitaly Ginzburg. Since then, he has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany, and the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington. He has lived in the Washington, D.C. area since 1994.

His research focuses on the theoretical and computational study of quantum materials, particularly superconducting and magnetic materials. In 2004, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and in 2014, 2018, and 2019, he was included in the Web of Science list of the top 0.1% most cited scientists in the world. In 2018, he received the John Bardeen Prize, the highest award in the theory of superconductivity. From 2006 to 2024, he served as an Editorial Board member of the leading US physics journal, Physical Review (series B and X).

Igor Mazin lives in Fairfax, Virginia. He enjoys books, films, theater, and ballet, and his favorite hobby is translating poetry.

Tara M. Chaplin is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at George Mason University. She received a Ph.D. in Clinical psychology in 2003 from Penn State University and completed post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania from 2003-2006. She was an Associate Research Scientist and Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine from 2006-2013, before joining the Clinical Psychology Faculty at George Mason University in 2013.

Dr. Chaplin’s research interests are in the role of emotional arousal and emotion regulation and sex differences in the development of risk behaviors (such as substance use) and of psychological problems (such as depression, anxiety, and conduct problems) during adolescence. She is interested in the role of the family context and parenting in shaping adolescents’ emotional development and their development of psychological symptoms. Her recent research has developed and tested family-focused interventions to improve parent-child relationships and prevent risk behaviors in adolescents, including her Parenting Mindfully (PM) intervention. Dr. Chaplin’s research is interdisciplinary, merging methods and theories from Psychology, Neuroscience, Family Studies, and Social-Developmental Science to understand adolescent emotional development. Her work incorporates multiple bio-behavioral methods, including self-reports of emotional experience, observational measures, cardiovascular measures such as heart rate variability, neuroendocrine measures such as cortisol, and neuroscience/fMRI measures (including through the GMU MRI center).

Dr. Chaplin’s research has been continuously funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and ABMRF/The Foundation for Alcohol Research since 2008. She has served as principle investigator (PI) on a NIH-funded K01 (Mentored Research Scientist) Award and four large (>$1 million) research awards from NIH (three R01 Awards, 1 R34 Award) to study sex differences in parenting, adolescent emotional arousal, and the development and prevention of substance use and other risk behaviors. Her work has contributed significantly to our understanding of the role of gender, emotion, and the family in the development of substance use. She has published over 55 peer reviewed papers. Her papers have appeared in Psychological Bulletin, Development and Psychopathology, Journal of Adolescent Health, and other journals.

Dr. Chaplin has also served on several committees related to supporting research and promoting George Mason’s research profile, including the Liason Committee on Medical Education, the Securing Research Health Information Workgroup, and as a core faculty member of the Center for Adaptive Systems of Brain-Body Interactions (CASBBI) and the Center for Evidence-Based Behavioral Health (CEBBH). She additionally contributes to national/international research communities by serving as a NIH Study Section standing member, where she reviews grants for NIH funding, and by serving for 8 years as co-Chair of the Society for Research on Child Development Emotions preconference.

Dr. Chaplin has also been extensively involved in mentoring doctoral students and junior scientists in research and career development, including serving as Chair of the Psychology Department Mentoring Committee, as a mentor or consultant on five NIH-funded doctoral and post-doctoral training grants, and as the Director of the GMU doctoral program in Clinical Psychology.

Dr. Edward B. Douthett, Jr. is an Associate Professor in the School of Management and is the Northern Chapter Virginia Society CPA Professor of Public Accounting. He currently teaches managerial and cost accounting in the Executive MBA and Undergraduate Accounting Programs. Prior to joining the faculty at George Mason University he worked as an Assistant Professor for Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.

Dr. Douthett also worked at Exxon Corporation in various staff and managerial positions, overseeing financial analysis and reporting for operating units in oil and gas production and chemical manufacturing. He is currently a Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and consults to various firms on the subjects of cost analysis and operational control.

Dr. Douthett’s research interests focus on the economics of accounting in U.S. and international capital markets. He sits on editorial review boards for several academic journals and has written articles that have appeared in refereed journals such as: Contemporary Accounting Research, The International Journal of Accounting, Journal of International Financial Management & Accounting, and the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy.

Dr. Douthett earned a BS from The Pennsylvania State University and an MBA and PhD from the University of Georgia.

Edward serves as a faculty liaison to the Audit Committee.