Committees

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

Armand Alacbay, Chair
Jeff Rosen, Vice Chair
Preston Cooper
Mike Meese
William Moschella
Sarah Parshall Perry
Melissa A. Broeckelman-Post, Faculty Representative
Tim Gibson, Faculty Representative
Jim Antony, Provost and Executive Vice President

Bob Pence, Chair
Jon Peterson, Vice Chair
Jeffrey Dinwoodie
William Moschella
Harold Pyon
Vacant, Faculty Representative
Vacant, Faculty Representative
Marvin Lewis, Assistant Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics

Mike Meese, Chair
Harold Pyon, Vice Chair
Preston Cooper
Bobbie Kilberg
Sarah Parschall Perry
Vacant, Faculty Liaison
Ed Dittmeier, Vice President and Chief Audit and Compliance Officer

Jon Peterson, Chair
Bobbie Kilberg, Vice Chair
Jeffrey Dinwoodie
Bob Pence
Sarah Parshall Perry
Bijan Jabbari, Faculty Representative
Niki Vlastara, Faculty Representative
Trishana Bowden, Vice President, University Advancement & Alumni Relations

(Parentheses note current year in two-year term)
Jeff Rosen, Chair (1/2)
Jeff Dinwoodie, Vice Chair (1/2)
Armand Alacbay (1/2)
Preston Cooper (1/2)
William Moschella (1/2)
Jon Peterson (1/2)
Debra Lattanzi Shutika, Faculty Representative (2/2)
Maggie Daniels, Faculty Representative (1/2)
Dan Stephens, Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Mike Meese, Chair
Armand Alacbay, Vice Chair
Bobbie Kilberg
Harold Pyon
Jeff Rosen
Igor Mazin, Faculty Representative
Anna Pollack, Faculty Representative
Andre Marshall, Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact

Athletics Liaisons – Bob Pence & Jon Peterson
Faculty Senate Liaison – Armand Alacbay
Law School Liaison – Jeff Rosen & vacant
Legislative Liaisons – Jon Peterson & vacant

At all Committees:
Cully Stimson, Rector
Gregory Washington, President
Isaiah Grays, Undergraduate Student Representative
Nilima Hakim Mow, 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.

Tim Gibson is an Associate Professor of Communication and Faculty Affiliate in the Cultural Studies PhD program at George Mason University.

Tim Gibson’s research interests include critical media studies, the political economy of communication, and urban studies. He has published articles at the intersection of media and urban studies in a variety of communication and cultural studies journals. He is also author of Securing the Spectacular City: The Politics of Revitalization and Homelessness in Downtown Seattle, a book which explores issues of gentrification and urban poverty in Seattle during the 1990s, and co-editor (with Mark Lowes) of Urban Communication: Production, Text, Context. He is an active member of Mason’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (GMU-AAUP) and currently serves as chapter Vice President. Together with other AAUP members, he has campaigned for donor transparency, faculty participation in the Presidential search, reduced workloads for term faculty, and for fair treatment of Mason’s contract workers. For the next two years, Tim will serve as the President of the Virginia Conference of the AAUP.

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.

Mariniki Vlastara is an Instructional Assistant Professor of Marketing at George Mason University. She holds a PhD in Marketing from Royal Holloway University of London and MBA from University of Miami. Her research interests focus on consumer behavior, consumer ethics and sustainable development. Before entering academia, she held different executive positions in Marketing and Revenue Planning in the leisure industry. She subsequently served as a consultant in business development for start up ventures developing their marketing strategy and communications plans.

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.

Dr. Maggie Daniels is a Professor of Tourism and Events Management in the School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management at George Mason University. Maggie conducts applied research in the areas of regional economic development, tourism planning, sustainable tourism, transportation, park planning, visitor studies, event management, and wedding planning. Over the past twenty years, she has acted as the lead investigator of teams that have completed collaborative research studies in DC, Virginia, and Maryland. She received her BA from Miami University of Ohio, MA from the University of Georgia, and PhD from Clemson University.

Maggie has a combination of over 100 published papers, book chapters, professional presentations, and technical reports to her credit. A recipient of Mason’s Teaching Excellence Award, Maggie empowers her students to develop management skills specific to analytical planning, financial ecosystems, valuation, investment analysis, and capital allocation. Her financial advice and planning expertise have been featured in outlets such as ABC Nightline News, MSNBC News, NPR Marketplace, The Washington Post, United Press International, US News and World Report, and WalletHub.

Maggie has spearheaded research in the niche event area of wedding consulting and has an award-winning book entitled Wedding Planning and Management: Consultancy for Diverse Clients <https://www.amazon.com/dp/0367227843> written with Carrie Wosicki and published by Routledge, with exclusive photography by award-winning photojournalist Rodney Bailey. Maggie is also the lead author on the STEM-based fiction book STRXIA: The Odds are against us <https://www.amazon.com/Strxia-Odds-Are-Against-Us/dp/1543950558>, written with aerospace engineer Matt Michel. STRXIA is designed to introduce elementary school children to the basic principles of physics in an entertaining way, with a focus on Newton’s three laws of motion.

Maggie has championed fundraising for Mason’s Student Food and Housing Insecurity Fund through the development and implementation of Mason Empty Bowls with co-chair Lauren Long, the Director of Student Involvement. This collaborative initiative involves units across campus, ceramic artists, and industry partners. Together with the community at large, we raise awareness and funds for all of the students in our community who face empty bowls each day.

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.

Anna Pollack’s research focuses on the relationship between environmental chemical exposures and fertility, pregnancy, and gynecologic health. Critical to understanding these endpoints, she investigates biological mechanisms underlying these processes, such as biomarkers of oxidative stress, inflammation, and endocrine disruption. Dr. Pollack’s research is based in the theory of critical windows of exposure, which emphasizes that the timing of chemical exposures can result in permanent changes. Dr. Pollack’s research also addresses disparities in exposure, which stem from environmental and occupational sources. She seeks to apply methods to examine complex mixtures to better understand their impact on women’s reproductive health.

Prior to joining George Mason University in 2013, Dr. Pollack was trained in reproductive and environmental epidemiology, and epidemiologic methods. She received her PhD in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University, MPH in environmental and occupational health from George Washington University, and BA in biology from Smith College. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.