Ashley Leak Bryant is vice dean of the University of North Carolina School of Nursing. Dr. Bryant, the Frances Hill Fox Distinguished Term Professor, has been serving as senior associate dean for the university’s Office of Strategy and Global Affairs and as co-director of the Pan American Health Organization Collaboration Center in Quality and Safety in Nursing and Midwifery. Her research focuses on team-based palliative care for older adults with cancer and their care partners.
Dr. Bryant holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She earned a doctorate in nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Thessalia Merivaki is director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service at Washington State University. Dr. Merivaki comes to her new role from Georgetown University, where she was an associate professor with joint appointments in the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Massive Data Institute. Her scholarship centers on the multiple dimensions of the electoral process, including institutional and administrative frameworks, political communication, voter behavior, and election science. For the past six years, Dr. Merivaki has co-directed the Election Officials Communications Tracker.
Dr. Merivaki holds a bachelor’s degree in politics and diplomacy from the University of Macedonia in Greece and a master’s degree in international studies from the University of Sheffield in England. She received a second master’s degree and a PhD. in political science from the University of Florida.
Jametta A. Davis was named assistant director of the Honors College at Hampton University in Virginia. Dr. Davis has more than two decades of experience spanning higher education, federal service, and the public humanities. Before joining Hampton, she spent 15 years with the National Archives and Records Administration. Dr. Davis has held fellowships with Howard University, Columbia University, Emory University, Duke University, and the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College in New York.
Dr. Davis holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, a master’s degree in history from North Carolina Central University, and a Ph.D. in history with concentrations in African American, African Diaspora, and public histories from Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Kate Bundorf has been named co-director of the Duke-Marglois Institute for Health Policy at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Bundorf is the J. Alexander McMahon Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management at the university. She also serves as a professor of population health sciences in the School of Medicine and as faculty director of research for the Sanford School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on health policy and the economics of health care systems.
Dr. Bundorf is a graduate of the University of Michigan. She earned an MBA and a master of public health degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Volha Charnysh was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor in the department of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An MIT faculty member since 2018, Dr. Charnysh studies the role of identity in state-building and economic development and the effects of violence. She is the author of Uprooted: How Post-WWII Population Transfers Remade Europe (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Dr. Charynsh is a summa cum laude graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she majored in government. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.
Kiana Dibo-Armstrong has been appointed chair of the department of social work at Savannah State University in Georgia. Dr. Dibo-Armstrong, a tenured associate professor, has served as the practicum field director for the university’s bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in social work for the past five years. Earlier in her career, she was a field education director at Colorado Mesa University, Southern Arkansas University, and Alabama State University.
Dr. Dibo-Armstrong holds three degrees in social work: a bachelor’s degree from Alabama State University, a master’s degree from the University of Alabama, and a doctorate from the University of Kentucky.