Ryan Alessi is a journalist and assistant professor in the School of Media Arts and Design. In addition to teaching media, he is co-founder and editor of The Harrisonburg Citizen, an independent online news organization focused on in-depth coverage of community issues. His research includes news and information literacy, as well as communities that lack access to news. Before coming to JMU, Ryan covered politics and government for a cable network in Kentucky, The Lexington Herald-Leader (Ky.) and Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Ben Blankenship is an assistant professor in The Department of Psychology at JMU. His research investigates social and personality predictors of social/political engagement, including outcomes like voting, activism, and political interest. He is also very interested in psychological factors that contribute to trust in social intuitions, like the government, education, and the media. In his teaching he focuses on cultural psychology, as well as research methods. He enjoys incorporating technology and social media as part of his pedagogy. Finally, in addition to being active on departmental and college diversity, equity, and inclusion committees, Dr. Blankenship is part of the chapter leadership for the emergent Virginia chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network, a national network of scholars committed to using scholarship to promote science-based policy and public decision-making. He believes that civic engagement should be at the core of higher education’s mission, and he often tries to incorporate civically-engaged topics in his research and teaching, as well as part of his service commitments to the university and beyond.  

Brandi Duncan serves as the Director of Engagement in the Office of the President. In her role, Brandi represents the Office of the President on projects and initiatives advancing key university goals with a focus on engagement. She also leads the Presidential Engagement Fellows program. As a first-generation graduate, Brandi values JMU’s focus on increasing access for first-generation students and other populations facing challenges to pursuing higher education. Before coming to JMU, Brandi worked at the University of Virginia building a career in strategic advancement. Brandi believes in the critical role education serves to inform and empower our citizens.

Michael Gubser is Professor of History at James Madison University, specializing in modern European history, intellectual history, Central and Eastern Europe, and the history of international development.  His most recent books are The Far Reaches: Phenomenology, Ethics, and Social Renewal in Central Europe (Stanford, 2014) and The Practice of International Development (Routledge, 2017), co-edited with Jerrold Keilson.  He is currently working on a book on the history of ahistoricism in international development.  Dr. Gubser coordinates JMU's "Democracy in Peril?" speaker series, and his musical Into the Sun was recently performed at the Kennedy Center.

Dr. Vesna Hart is Associate Director for Interprofessional and Interdisciplinary Education and Programs, IIHHS/CHBS, Assistant Professor in Graduate Psychology, and Faculty Coordinator for the Madison International Residential Learning Community at JMU. A native of Croatia, Dr. Hart has over 30 years of experience developing and implementing curricular programming focused on personal development and interpersonal communication with diverse (and sometimes deeply conflicted) populations, in both academic and community settings. With strong interest in interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration, her teaching, practice, and scholarship interests include design of learning experiences and learning outcomes focused on personal development, wellbeing, and engaging across differences.

John Wesley Lee II serves as the Director of Engagement and Assessment for the Honors College at James Madison University and is also a doctoral student in the Strategic Leadership Studies program. He joined the Honors College in Fall 2022 as an assessment specialist and doctoral assistant supported initially by JMU’s Center for Assessment and Research Studies (CARS). John's expertise includes computer mediated measurement, with a focus on large-scale academic and military organizational data collection. His research investigates the role of computers in organizational assessment and leadership using experimental designs that include psychobiological data collected during the administration of computer-assisted self-interviews (CASI). A Virginia native, John lives in Luray with his wife and two sons and enjoys performing and writing original music, the outdoors, family time, and traveling. More information can be found at www.johnwlee.com.

Dr. Dena A. Pastor has a dual appointment at James Madison University as a professor in the Department of Graduate Psychology and as the Associate Director of Assessment Operations in the Center for Assessment and Research Studies (CARS). She teaches graduate courses in statistics and data management and advises students in the Assessment & Measurement Ph.D. program and the Psychological Sciences – Quantitative Psychology M.A. program. In CARS she oversees the coordination of JMU’s biannual institution-wide Assessment Days and provides guidance on JMU’s civic engagement assessment endeavors. 

Dr. Emma S. Thacker is an associate professor in the College of Education, with an emphasis in social studies education. Dr. Thacker has taught a variety of courses in social studies pedagogy, curriculum design, and educational research at the undergraduate and graduate level, and her research interests include social studies teacher professional learning, the design and implementation of critical social studies inquiries in K-12 classrooms, and pre-service teacher education for social justice. Dr. Thacker’s research, teaching, and service address the need to prepare all students for civic life as a necessary component of a more equitable, democratic society. Some of her recent publications have appeared in Theory and Research in Social Education, Journal of Social Studies Research, Social Education, Social Studies and the Young Learner, The Reading Teacher, and The Clearing House.

Dr. Cyril V. Uy II studies how Muslim thinkers across space and time have approached knowledge as a means of fashioning themselves and the world(s) around them. He specializes in medieval Sufism and Islamic philosophy, reading theoretical texts, encyclopedias, hagiographies, and prayer manuals in conversation with contemporary work on knowledge, embodied performance, and identity. His current book project, Lost in a Sea of Letters: Saʿd al-Dīn Ḥamūya (d. 1252) and the Plurality of Sufi Knowledge, focuses on strategies of play in avant-garde Sufi treatises, exploring how an active cultivation of difference could thrive as a robust approach to social and intellectual competition. Bringing his research to bear on civic engagement, Dr. Uy is interested in grappling with points of tension at the heart of contemporary identity-making projects. 

Traci Wile is a community organizer, artist, educator, and architectural designer who focuses on inclusive, participatory design. She is an Assistant Professor of Architectural Design at James Madison University. Before coming to JMU, she was a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Director of Community Engagement at Organizing for Action, a nonprofit issue advocacy organization, learning to empower everyday people to be change agents in their communities.