Leonidas G. Bachas joined the University of Miami as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2010. A distinguished analytical and biological chemist, Bachas was formerly the Frank J. Derbyshire Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky and chair of its Department of Chemistry. Bachas’s tenure at Kentucky was marked by responsibilities and duties across several areas. From 2004 to 2009, he served as associate dean of research and academic programs of UK’s College of Arts and Sciences, participating in collegiate planning, major policy decisions, faculty recruitment and retention, and budget allocation among the school’s 16 departments and 15 interdisciplinary programs. As chair of UK’s chemistry department, he made mentoring young instructors and researchers one of his top priorities. He also made diversity a key objective, spearheading efforts to include in the sciences more women, students of color, and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
At UK, he built a strong reputation for fostering interdisciplinary initiatives, heading a research group that brought together biological chemists, materials scientists, toxicologists, and electrochemists to address some of today’s most pressing issues.
Bachas earned his Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Athens, Greece, and he holds master’s degrees in chemistry and oceanic sciences from the University of Michigan, from where he also earned his Ph.D. in chemistry. He was also a postdoctoral research fellow at the school.
An award-winning educator with 39 years of leadership in higher education, Shelton (Shelly) Berg is Dean and Patricia L. Frost Professor of Music at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. He is a Steinway piano artist and five-time Grammy-nominated arranger, orchestrator, and producer. His album projects The Deep (Chesky), The Nearness of You (Arbors), Blackbird (Concord) and The Will (CARS), and I Love You Porgy/There’s a Boat That’s Leavin’ Soon For New York are critically-acclaimed. Berg earned Grammy nomination as co-producer of Gloria Estefan: The Standards (Sony). Recent projects include recording and/or performing with Tony Bennett, Seal, Lizz Wright, Andra Day, Clint Holmes, Renée Fleming, and Arturo Sandoval. He is also the host of a monthly radio show Generation Next on Sirius XM, music director of The Jazz Cruise, and artistic advisor for the Jazz Roots series at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami.
Before joining the Frost School of Music, Shelly Berg was the McCoy/Sample Professor of Jazz Studies at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California and a past president of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). In 2003 he was honored as Educator of the Year by the Los Angeles Jazz Society and in 2002 received the IAJE Lawrence Berk Leadership Award. In 2000 the Los Angeles Times named him one of three “Educators for the Millennium.”
His textbooks include Essentials of Jazz Theory, the Chop-Monster beginning improvisation series, Rhythm Section Workshop for Jazz Directors (Alfred Music) and Jazz Improvisation: The Goal-Note Method (Kendor). He has appeared as a performer and lecturer throughout the United States as well as in Canada, China, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Japan, Romania and Venezuela.
Charles D. Eckman joined the University of Miami as dean of libraries and university librarian in December 2013. He previously served as dean of library services at Simon Fraser University, director of library collections at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal government documents librarian and head of the social sciences resource group at Stanford University.
His service to the profession includes elected terms as President and Vice President of the International Association of University Libraries, terms on the boards of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, and an appointment on the Depository Library Council to the Public Printer. He is founding director of the Hemispheric University Consortium Library Network.
Dr. Eckman has managed and consulted for several digital library and open access initiatives. His research interests include information policy, open access initiatives, digital scholarship, and the history of scholarly communication. He holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree from UC Berkeley (1987), Ph.D. in politics from Princeton (1986), and a B.A. in political science from Indiana University (1979).
Rodolphe el-Khoury is Dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture. Before coming to UMSoA in July, 2014, he was Canada Research Chair and Director of Urban Design at the University of Toronto, Head of Architecture at California College of the Arts, and Associate Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has taught at Columbia University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Princeton University and has had Visiting Professor appointments at MIT, University of Hong Kong, and Rice University (Cullinen Visiting Chair). After earning a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design, el-Khoury obtained a Master of Science in Architecture from MIT and his Ph.D. from Princeton University.
el-Khoury was trained as both a historian and a practitioner and continues to divide his time between scholarship and design. As a partner in Khoury Levit Fong (KLF), his award-winning projects include Beirut Martyr’s Square (AIA San Francisco), Stratford Market Square (Boston Society of Architecture), and the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art (AIA Cleveland). His books on eighteenth-century European architecture include The Little House, An Architectural Seduction, and See Through Ledoux; Architecture Theatre, and the Pursuit of Transparency. Books on contemporary architecture and urbanism include Monolithic Architecture, Architecture in Fashion, States of Architecture in the Twenty-first Century: New Directions from the Shanghai Expo, and Figures: Essays on Contemporary Architecture.
el-Khoury’s current research in architecture focuses on applications for information technology, aiming for enhanced responsiveness and sustainability in buildings and smart cities. He is also working on the application of robotics and embedded technology in architecture in projects and prototypes for interactive and responsive environments, including immersive environments and multi-sensory architecture. With the tools and resources of RAD-UM, his lab at UMSoA, he aims to put every brick online and believes that "embedded technology empowers networked environments to better address the environmental and social challenges we face today."
Articles on his projects and research have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and WIRED Magazine. He was also featured online (Gizmodo, DeZeen, Fast Company, Domus, Reuters) and on television and radio shows (CBC, Space Channel, NBC, TFO, BBC World), speaking about the Internet of Things and importance of connectivity. His work in this area is documented in The Living, Breathing, Thinking Responsive Buildings of the Future (Thames and Hudson, 2012). His 2013 TEDxToronto talk on Designing for the Internet of Things has been viewed more than 15,000 times.
Henri R. Ford, M.D., became dean of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine on June 1, 2018.
Dr. Ford is a Haitian-born pediatric surgeon who maintains close ties with his native country. In 2010 he traveled to Haiti after the earthquake to provide surgical care to children injured in the catastrophe. Since then, Dr. Ford has returned to Haiti regularly to provide medical care to its residents. In May 2015, he performed the first successful separation of conjoined twins in Haiti, alongside surgeons he helped train.
He was most recently senior vice president and chief of surgery at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), vice dean of medical education, and professor and vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Dr. Ford was professor and chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery and surgeon-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh School of
Medicine before joining CHLA in January 2005.
Motivated by a deep desire to have a positive impact on the world and drive important change, Dr. Ford has achieved unprecedented success throughout his career. He has conducted groundbreaking research on the pathogenesis of necrotizing enterocolitis, the most common and lethal disease affecting the gastrointestinal tract of newborn infants. His work has led to new insights into the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of this vexing disease. Under his leadership, CHLA developed a robust, state-of-the-art minimally invasive surgery program.
Dr. Ford’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the Injury Free Coalition for Kids, the National Trauma Registry for Children and the American College of Surgeons, among others. He is the author of more than 300 publications, book chapters, invited manuscripts, abstracts, and presentations.
Dr. Ford is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Surgeons (England), the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
He received his bachelor’s degree in public and international affairs, cum laude, from Princeton University, and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He also received his M.H.A. (Master of Health Administration) degree from the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California.
Position and Research Expertise
Ben Kirtman is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. He uses atmosphere-ocean general circulation models to study the predictability and variability of the Earth’s climate system.
Teaching and Mentoring
Kirtman teaches graduate courses on the general circulation of the atmosphere and El Niño/Southern Oscillation, and climate prediction and predictability. He also teaches dynamic meteorology and atmospheric thermodynamics to undergraduates. He mentors graduate students in the Meteorology and Physical Oceanography graduate program, as well as post-doctoral researchers.
Kirtman’s research is a wide-ranging program designed to understand and quantify the limits of climate predictability from days to decades. His research also involves understanding how the climate will change in response to changes in anthropogenic (e.g., greenhouse gases) and natural (e.g., volcanoes) forcing. This research involves hypothesis testing numerical experiments, using sophisticated state-of-the-art climate models and experimental realtime prediction. His group uses and has access to a suite of climate models, climate data, and high performance computational platforms.
Dr. Kohn-Wood is currently a Professor and Dean of the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami (UM). Dr. Kohn-Wood previously served as chair of the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies, the founding program director of the Master’s in Community & Social Change program and, with colleagues, developed the Ph.D. Program in Community Well-Being at the University of Miami. She also previously held the title of Associate Vice Provost for the Office of Institutional Culture, served as the Senior Resident Faculty of Pearson Residential College and was the Inaugural co-Chair of the University’s Standing Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Dr. Kohn-Wood received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in Community Psychology, from the University of Virginia in 1996 and completed an internship at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Kohn-Wood’s research program Race, Ethnicity, Culture and Promotion of Strengths (RECAPS) focuses on race, ethnicity, and culture in relation to the experience of psychological phenomena among diverse populations, with an emphasis on race-based protective factors and the promotion of positive coping and mental health among African Americans.
Paul A. Pavlou is the Dean of the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School. He is also the Leonard M. Miller University Chair Professor.
His research has been cited more than 90,000 times by Google Scholar, and Thomson Reuters recognized him among the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” based on an analysis of Highly Cited Researchers. Paul was ranked No. 1 globally in publications in top Information Systems journals from 2010 to 2016. He earned a Ph.D. in Information Systems and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering and managerial studies, magna cum laude, from Rice University.
In his former position as Dean of the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, Paul helped raise over $150M in philanthropic gifts and commitments. During his tenure, the Bauer College led all business schools by ascending 34 spots in the U.S. News & World Report rankings to become a Top 50 MBA program; climbed 44 spots in the online master’s programs rankings; joined the Top 15 public undergraduate programs by Poets&Quants; and ranked #1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program by The Princeton Review for five consecutive years.
He also prioritized experiential learning and job placement through initiatives like the Office of Experiential Learning and various research institutes, while also enhancing community inclusion with programs such as the Center for Economic Inclusion, securing over $10M in philanthropic support.
Paul is a Distinguished Fellow of the INFORMS Information Systems Society. He won several Best Paper Awards for his research, including the Sheth Foundation Award for “Long-Term Contributions to Marketing” published in the Journal of Marketing (2019), the Maynard Award for the “Most Significant Contribution to Marketing” in the Journal of Marketing (2015), the Information Systems Research Best Paper Award (2007), and the IS Publication of the Year Award (2006). He also won the Best Paper Award (2012), the Runner-Up to the Best Paper (2005), the Best Interactive Paper (2002), and the Best Student Paper Award (2001) from the Academy of Management.
Paul received over $3,500,000 in grants from funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), including a new $1,500,000 NSF grant in 2021 to study energy disruption. His research appeared in top journals, such as Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Production and Operations Management His research spans several disciplines (information systems, data science, marketing, operations management, and management sciences) with emphasis on artificial intelligence, business analytics, and digital strategy.
Paul also won several Reviewer awards, including the 2009 Management Science Meritorious Service Award, the Best Reviewer Award of the 2005 Academy of Management Conference, and the prestigious 2003 MISQ Reviewer of the Year Award as a Ph.D. student. Paul is currently Senior Editor at ISR and earlier at MISQ and JAIS. Finally, Paul won the Best Doctoral Dissertation award at the International Conference on Information Systems in 2004.
PhD, RN, FABMR, FAAN
Areas of Expertise: Professional Development, Graduate Student Events, and Student Grievances and Appeals
Hudson Santos is Professor and the Dolores J. Chambreau Endowed Chair in Nursing at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies (SONHS). Born in Brazil, Dr. Santos immigrated to the US to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University School of Nursing (2015) after obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the State University of Paraiba, and a PhD in Nursing Science from the University of Sao Paulo. As a doctoral student, he spent a year as visiting scholar between the University of British Columbia at Vancouver and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Prior to joining the University of Miami, Dr. Santos was a tenured distinguished associate professor and director of the biobehavioral laboratory at UNC-CH School of Nursing.
Dr. Santos is an internationally renowned nurse researcher and principal investigator of multiple funded studies focused on the mechanisms of social determinants of health (SDOH) and developmental health trajectories for at-risk populations, with a strong emphasis on Latinx communities. Specifically, he explores how SDOH, and adverse life events affect maternal-child health and developmental outcomes among at-risk children. His methodological expertise includes bio-social studies, longitudinal cohorts, and clinical interventions. His work bridges the gap between the biological and social domains in nursing science, addressing the developmental origins of health and disease.
Dr. Santos’ mission includes mentoring future generations of nurses and other health professionals. He mentors undergraduate, graduate, and early career faculty from several disciplines and institutions. He has experience teaching across undergraduate and graduate programs in nursing and public health.
Fields of Interest: Latinx Maternal-Child Health; Child Development; Social Genomics; Social Determinants of Health; Health Equity
Fields of Interest: Latinx Maternal-Child Health; Child Development; Social Genomics; Social Determinants of Health; Health Equity
Hudson Santos is Professor and the Dolores J. Chambreau Endowed Chair in Nursing at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies (SONHS). Born in Brazil, Dr. Santos immigrated to the US to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University School of Nursing (2015) after obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the State University of Paraiba, and a PhD in Nursing Science from the University of Sao Paulo. As a doctoral student, he spent a year as visiting scholar between the University of British Columbia at Vancouver and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Prior to joining the University of Miami, Dr. Santos was a tenured distinguished associate professor and director of the biobehavioral laboratory at UNC-CH School of Nursing.
Dr. Santos is an internationally renowned nurse researcher and principal investigator of multiple funded studies focused on the mechanisms of social determinants of health (SDOH) and developmental health trajectories for at-risk populations, with a strong emphasis on Latinx communities. Specifically, he explores how SDOH, and adverse life events affect maternal-child health and developmental outcomes among at-risk children. His methodological expertise includes bio-social studies, longitudinal cohorts, and clinical interventions. His work bridges the gap between the biological and social domains in nursing science, addressing the developmental origins of health and disease.
Dr. Santos’ mission includes mentoring future generations of nurses and other health professionals. He mentors undergraduate, graduate, and early career faculty from several disciplines and institutions. He has experience teaching across undergraduate and graduate programs in nursing and public health.
Karin Wilkins is Dean of the School of Communication at the University of Miami. Before coming to UM in September, 2019 she was Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement and Strategic Initiatives with the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also held the John T. Jones Jr. Centennial Professorship in Communication and the John P. McGovern Regents Professorship in Health and Medical Science Communication. She was awarded the Cale McDowell Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Studies, for creating a certificate in global studies, programs in Middle East studies, and a degree in Communication and Leadership.
Wilkins is also the Editor-in-Chief of Communication Theory. She has won numerous awards for her research, service and teaching, and chaired the Intercultural/Development Division of the International Communication Association. Her work addresses scholarship in the fields of development communication, global communication, and political engagement. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A., in Interdisciplinary Studies from Bucknell University.
Selected works include New dimensions in the politics of national image and foreign aid: Communication, development, and diplomacy (ed. 2018); Communicating Gender and Advocating Accountability in Global Development (2015); Handbook of Development Communication and Social Change (ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), New Agendas in Global Communication (ed., Routledge, 2013); Questioning Numbers: How to Read & Critique Research (Oxford University Press, 2011); Home/Land/Security: What we learn about Arab Communities from Action Adventure Film (Lexington Books, 2008), Re-Developing Communication for Social Change (ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) as well as journal publications in Nordicom; Communication Theory; Media, Culture & Society; Communication, Culture & Critique; Journal of Communication; Journal of Middle East Media; International Journal of Communication; Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies; Development & Change; Perspectives on Global Development and Technology; Critical Studies in Media Communication; and Global Media Journal.