Julie E. Williams, Ph.D. is the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). She established the University's first office of Engagement & Academic Outreach and provides leadership across the University to advance community engagement and support innovative approaches to faculty development, inclusive excellence and extramural funding. Dr. Williams supports individual and interdisciplinary teams to advance mutually beneficial collaborations with external partners locally, nationally and internationally.

Reporting directly to the Provost and formerly to the Vice President for Research, she works closely with the Deans to identify and develop faculty who seek to advance their scholarship and engagement through external funding. Since joining UNH in 2001, Dr. Williams has held key leadership roles in university-wide and unit-level strategic planning and implementation, institutional accreditation, faculty development and research strategic planning.

Dr. Williams developed and leads the University’s first long term partnership with an historically black university that has been awarded more than $7.5 million in extramural funding and garnered national recognition from federal agency partners. She leads a portfolio of faculty development programs designed to increase the diversity and number of faculty who receive extramural funding to advance their scholarship and which also enhances the University’s diversity, retention and engagement priorities. This includes two semester-long faculty development academies, the Engaged Scholars Academy, and the Research and Engagement Academy and five faculty learning communities in STEM, the humanities, sustainable ecosystems, for women associate professors and the library. She also works in Washington to enhance the UNH presence at key agencies and routinely sponsors and hosts individual and team visits to federal agencies.

In addition to Office programmatic responsibilities, Williams developed the Engaged Scholars Writing Team which has published and presented work at national and international conferences about the impact of various Office programs and interventions. She also provides oversight for one of the nation's largest undergraduate research conferences and supervises the Joan and James Leitzel Center for Mathematics, Science and Engineering Education.

A native Virginian, Dr. Williams received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Tennessee, was a predoctoral fellow at Yale University, and completed her undergraduate education at the College of William and Mary. She was awarded an American Council on Education (ACE) fellowship served at William and Mary and led the first ACE Fellows visit to three South African universities. Prior to joining UNH, she held administrative and faculty appointments at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Tennessee, the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and Knoxville College.

Eleanor D. Abrams, Ph.D. is a Professor of Education and a Senior Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. She is responsible for supporting research and engaged scholarship at the University of New Hampshire, working in collaboration with the university institutes such as the Joan and James Leitzel Center for Mathematics, Science and Engineering Education, the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, the Marine Program and the Carsey Institute. Dr. Abrams helped create and launch the nationally recognized faculty development program entitled the UNH Engaged Scholars Academy. In addition, Dr. Abrams increased the involvement of UNH undergraduate students in research and outreach through the Undergraduate Research Conference, now one of the largest of its kind in the nation. Dr. Abrams is committed to working with groups of interdisciplinary faculty to strengthen engaged scholarship within their grant activities, and pursues an active engaged scholarship agenda. Abrams was awarded her Ph.D. in science education from Louisiana State University and completed her undergraduate education at the University of Massachusetts in wildlife ecology and botany. In addition to her teaching and research, she is the Program Coordinator for the Masters of Arts in Environmental Education.

Janet W. Campbell, Ph.D. is Research Professor Emerita in the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, and the Department of Earth Sciences. She currently serves as faculty fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. Dr. Campbell has over 30 years of experience in ocean remote sensing research and development. She began her career as an Aerospace Technologist with the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia, and later served as the Program Manager for Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry at NASA Headquarters. While at UNH since 1993, she taught graduate courses related to her research and directed the research of 11 graduate students. She served as director of the Ocean Process Analysis Laboratory, director of the Center for Coastal Ocean Observation and Analysis, and was a member of the Marine Program Executive Committee. In recent years, Dr. Campbell served as Deputy Vice President for Research, Interim Director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, and Associate Dean in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. In 2010, she led a study commissioned by the Provost to develop a plan for aligning marine-related educational programs with the extensive marine and ocean engineering research being conducted at UNH. She holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a Master's degree in mathematics from Vanderbilt University, and a Bachelor's degree in mathematics from Mary Baldwin College.

Diane L. Foster, Ph.D. is a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach, and a member of the UNH National Science Foundation funded ADVANCE Leadership Team. Dr. Foster, an Associate Professor, joined the faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department in 2008 after serving on the faculty at the Ohio State University (OSU) for nine years. She is a recipient of OSU's College of Engineering Diversity Excellence and Lumley Research awards. She recently completed the Higher Education Resources Services Leadership Institute at Wellesley College. Dr. Foster has been a champion for diversity efforts through her involvement in a Future Engineers Summer Camp, numerous K-12 outreach programs, advising UNH's inaugural chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, and mentoring many female graduate students across the US. She co-founded a Women in Fluids Network that will provide networking, mentoring and professional opportunities for women working in Fluid Dynamics, and will help develop the professional influence of women in Fluid Dynamics. With coastal oceans as her focus, Dr. Foster has meandered through the engineering and ocean science disciplines with positions in civil, environmental, mechanical, and ocean engineering and physical oceanography. As a graduate student at Oregon State University, she obtained the first field observations of turbulence in the wave bottom boundary layer. Dr. Foster teaches several courses in the thermal fluids and coastal sciences fields. Her current research is focused the unraveling the mysteries involved in the interactions between waves and other coastal flows and the underlying sediment. Dr. Foster has been awarded funding from the Office of Naval Research, Sea Grant, and the National Science Foundation to advance her scholarship, including receiving the prestigious National Science Foundation Early CAREER award.

Charles A. French, Ph.D. is an Associate Extension Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. He co-chairs the Engaged Scholars Writing Team and was a scholar in the inaugural class of the Engaged Scholars Academy. As coordinator of UNH Cooperative Extension’s community development program, Dr. French helps New Hampshire communities to engage the public in local decision-making around a range of issues, including land use, tourism development and civic agriculture. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in community and environmental planning and coordinates community planning internships for several undergraduate planning majors. His recent research focuses on measuring the outcomes of university-community partnerships. From 1995 - 1997, Dr. French served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Panama, where he taught conservation and sustainable agriculture techniques to school-age youth and subsistence farmers. He currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Sustainable Harvest International, an international development organization whose focus is providing farming families in Central America with knowledge and capacity to feed their families and generate income, while preserving tropical forests. Dr. French has a B.A. in Geography from Dartmouth College, M.A. in Regional Planning from Western Illinois University, and Ph.D. in Natural Resources Policy from the University of New Hampshire.

Serita D. Frey, Ph.D. is Professor of Ecology and a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. She is the recipient of the 2011 Karen Von Damm Leadership Development Award, a Bullard Fellowship from Harvard University (2008-2009), and a National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award (2005-2010). Dr. Frey is also a graduate of the UNH Engaged Scholars Academy. She is the faculty director of the Natural Resources and Earth System Science (NRESS) Ph.D. program and teaches courses in soil science and ecology. Her research examines how environmental change is altering the structure and function of forest ecosystems, with an emphasis on soil microbial communities and nutrient cycling processes. She is on the Board of Editors for the journals Ecology, Ecological Monographs, and Issues in Ecology, and is currently serving as secretary of the International Soil Ecology Society.

Karen J. Graham, Ph.D. is Professor of Mathematics in the UNH Department of Mathematics and Statistics. She was appointed to serve as the inaugural director of the Joan and James Leitzel Center in January 2003. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from UNH in 1986. She taught mathematics in Pine Plains, NY prior to beginning work on her doctorate and taught at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI) prior to joining the faculty at UNH. Dr. Graham also directs the UNH Master of Science for Teachers (MST) in mathematics program. Her professional and scholarly interests include the teaching and learning of calculus, mathematics education reform based research, and mathematics teacher development. Dr. Graham has served as the project director of many state and federally funded projects. She has presented numerous workshops at local, state, regional, and national conferences. In addition she has served as a documentation consultant on several national research projects designed to explore mathematics education reform efforts, the QUASAR (Quantitative Understanding: Amplifying Student Achievement and Reasoning) Project, the R3M (Recognizing and Recording Reform in Mathematics Education) Project, and the CCH Evaluation and Documentation Project.

Brad L. Kinsey, Ph.D. is a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach, and a member of the UNH Research and Engagement Academy leadership team. Dr. Kinsey, an Associate Professor, joined the faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department in the 2001. He is a 2007 recipient of a UNH Faculty Excellence Award for “Outstanding Assistant Professor”, and a 2005 graduate of the UNH Engaged Scholars Academy. Dr. Kinsey has been a mentor for young women and girls enrolled in the Girls Connect program, part of FIRST Robotics, which strives to capture the interest of young people in the fields of science and technology. He worked in the automotive industry for three years after his bachelor’s degree before beginning his graduate work at Northwestern University. For his doctoral work, he successfully devised, analyzed, and implemented a modification to the sheet metal forming process to alleviate tearing failures. Dr. Kinsey teaches several courses in design and manufacturing, including and a course in computer-aided engineering, featuring authentic class projects which incorporate teaching with real analysis practices from industry. His current research is in the areas of Microforming; Stress based Failure Criterion Evaluation; Electromagnetic Forming and Magnetic Pulsed Welding; and Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing Processes. Dr. Kinsey has been awarded funding from the National Science Foundation to advance his scholarship, including receiving the prestigious National Science Foundation Early CAREER award.

Peter F. Masucci, M.B.A. serves in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach as the Chair of the UNH Undergraduate Research Conference (URC) Planning Committee. The URC is the largest multi-disciplinary, single institution event of its kind in the nation. Mr. Masucci is a full-time Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics (WSBE), where he teaches graduate-level MBA courses in marketing management, marketing research, new product development, and advertising and integrated marketing communications, as well as undergraduate marketing courses. He also serves as the faculty advisor to the UNH Marketing and Advertising Club. In 2006 Mr. Masucci was inducted as a member of the UNH chapter of the Golden Key International Honour Society. In addition he received the 2006 “Excellence in Teaching Award” from the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at UNH, and the “Bernstein Teaching Service Award” from Simmons College in 2007. Prior to his career in teaching, Mr. Masucci worked in the high-technology industry for more than 30 years. During his years in the aerospace industry as a project engineer, Mr. Masucci worked on the Apollo and Skylab manned spacecraft programs, and conducted spacecraft trajectory analysis research for NASA. Mr. Masucci received a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering from Boston University, and an MBA degree from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has lectured on a variety of marketing topics at industry conferences around the world and authored several articles on product positioning and marketing. He was a featured speaker at a MIT Enterprise Forum workshop on marketing, and served as a judge in the New Hampshire State Business Plan Competition. He currently serves as an advisor to the New Hampshire Innovation Commercialization Center.

Lisa L. Townson, Ph.D. is an engagement associate in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach, and the Assistant Director of the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. In addition to her Extension responsibilities in program development and evaluation and staff development, she has assisted with the development, implementation, and evaluation of the UNH Engaged Scholars Academy. Dr. Townson earned her doctorate from the UNH Department of Education, focusing on disciplinary differences in how faculty members engage in engaged scholarship.

Dale R. Valena, B.A. is a Staff Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. In her capacity as Staff Fellow, Dale works with faculty fellows to support grant proposal development and submission to advance the work of faculty and staff projects pursued by the University Library. She is curator of the University Museum in Dimond Library and organizes thematic exhibitions and library displays year-round.

Ruth K. Varner, Ph.D. is a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. Dr. Varner is also Research Associate Professor in the Earth Systems Research Center at the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. She obtained her Ph.D. in Geochemical Systems in 2000 (UNH).  Following the development of a gas chromatography/cryo-focusing technique to quantify methyl bromide in ambient air samples, Dr. Varner’s research led to the discovery of soil as a significant biological sink of atmospheric methyl bromide. Her research contributed to the discovery of freshwater wetlands as a source of methyl bromide and methyl chloride to the atmosphere. Dr. Varner is jointly appointed in the Department of Earth Sciences where she has taught the following courses: Watershed Hydrology, Techniques in Environmental Science, Aqueous Geochemistry and Fate and Transport. She is a Co-PI of the UNH GEO-Teach program to Transform Earth System Science Education (TESSE), working with pre and in-service middle and high school teachers. Dr. Varner is also active in bringing STEM programming to girls through both her work with the Girl Scouts of Maine and the Northeast Girl's Collaborative Project.   

David H. Watters, Ph.D. is a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. He is responsible for supporting faculty in the humanities who are interested in seeking opportunities for external funding to support their scholarship. Dr. Watters is a Professor in the English department. He was the James H. Hayes and Claire Short Hayes Chair in the Humanities (1997-2002), and currently directs the Center for New England Culture, a unit of the University of New Hampshire’s Center for the Humanities. Dr. Watters’s research is focused on the literature, history, and material culture of New England. He is the coeditor of The Encyclopedia of New England (2005) and has written books and articles on New England authors. He has been the lead humanist for several radio series, including the nationally syndicated American Library Association’s StoryLines America: New England and Granite State Stories featured on New Hampshire Public Radio. Teaching interests include early American literature and gravestone art, Black New England writers, and New Hampshire literature. Dr. Watters, who received his doctorate from Brown University, has received multiple distinguished honors, including Association for Gravestone Studies Harriet Merrifield Forbes Award, 2009; UNH President’s Excellence in Diversity Award (2007); UNH Excellence in Public Service Award (2003); UNH Diversity Support Coalition Award (1995); William L. Dunfey Award for Excellence in the Humanities, New Hampshire Humanities Council (1992); Council for the Advan-cement and Support of Education New Hampshire Professor of the Year (1990);and UNH Outstanding Professor, at the Associate Rank (1990). Active in the public service arena, Dr. Watters has held several positions, including Vice President, New Hampshire Historical Society; Trustee, Robert Frost Homestead, Derry; New Hampshire State Historical Resources Council; and Board of Advisors, Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail. He also represents Strafford District 4, Dover, in the New Hampshire legislature and serves on the Fish and Game and Marine Resources Committee.

Lynne D. Cooper, B.A. is program coordinator in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. She advances and provides professional support for the UNH Undergraduate Research Conference, the UNH Engaged Scholars Academy and a range of initiatives in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost.

Former Faculty Fellows

George C. Hurtt, Ph.D. is currently a Professor and the Research Director at the University of Maryland, Department of Geography.  While at UNH, Dr. Hurtt was an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resources, a former faculty fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach and project lead for the Carnegie Classification Community Engagement initiative. Dr. Hurtt and his colleagues taught the first undergraduate course on engaged scholarship in fall 2007 entitled: How to Change the World: Engaging Students and Community Partners in Collaborative Research. He was recognized as a "UNH Engaged Scholar" in 2004. Dr. Hurtt's research focuses on the theory and application of community and ecosystem ecology. His primary approach is to combine mathematics and data to develop models for understanding and predicting the structure and dynamics of ecological systems. He has published on a wide range of topics including: the role of dispersal in the dynamics and structure of plant communities, latitudinal and elevational gradients in biodiversity, and ocean and terrestrial ecosystem models for use in studies of the global carbon cycle and global climate change. Current research is focused on the development and application of mathematical models to address issues such as: the sustainability of land-use practices, the effects of disturbances on ecosystem structure and function, and interactions between the biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. Dr. Hurtt is involved in several collaborative research projects including the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in South America, the North American Carbon Program, and efforts to develop global carbon system and land surface models using NASA's Earth Observing System. He is a coauthor and scientific spokesperson for the New England Regional Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, a lead author of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and has testified to both the New Hampshire Legislature and U.S. Congress on the science of global change. Dr. Hurtt teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate level. His introductory course Global Biological Change investigates major biological changes on the planet and engages over 100 students per year. His advanced course Earth System Science was developed with NASA support to provide a new approach to the subject and is described in a publication in the Journal of Geoscience Education. He has directed Research & Discover www.eos.sr.unh.edu/ResearchAndDiscover, a multi-year internship/fellowship program that has attracted and supported literally dozens of science students. He was the founding chairperson of the UNH Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Symposium (one of the largest events of the UNH Undergraduate Research Conference), is an editor of the international journal Ecology Letters, and is a contributing faculty member of Faculty of 1000.

Sharyn Potter, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and a former faculty fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Engagement and Academic Outreach. She was recognized as a "UNH Engaged Scholar" in 2004 and served as the faculty director of the UNH Engaged Scholars Academy. She received her B.S. in Accounting from the State University of New York at Albany. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Emory University in 1998 and her MPH in Health Policy and Management from the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University in 1994. Her scholarship has focused on the intersection of federal policy and organizational behavior. She has used organizational theories to examine hospital outcomes in the face of new legislation. Additionally, she has analyzed the community benefit provision of not-for-profit and for-profit hospitals (with Dr. Edmund R. Becker). She has also completed a study examining how changes in federal health care legislation have affected hospital executive turnover and the types of executives that are hired (with Dr. Timothy J. Dowd). In another project, she has analyzed (with Dr. John McKinlay) how changes in 20th century health care policy have affected various aspects of the physician-patient relationship. Dr. Potter's work has appeared in Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Teaching Sociology, Journal of Health Care Finance, Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, Clinical Performance and Quality Health Care and Sociological Forum. She also published a book, Can Efficiency and Community Service be Symbiotic? A longitudinal analysis of not-for-profit and for-profit hospitals in the United States, in 2000. She incorporates service-learning components in many of her courses and has written two papers describing these projects. She also received the UNH 2003 Outstanding Assistant Professor Award.

Cameron P. Wake, Ph.D. is a former senior faculty fellow to the Senior Vice Provost, and a Research Associate Professor in the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space and the Department of Earth Sciences. He served as the faculty director of the UNH Undergraduate Research Conference from 2006 until 2010, and has worked with the Senior Vice Provost to advance a number of the Office's engaged scholarship and research initiatives. He leads an active research program investigating regional climate and environmental change through the analysis of ice cores and instrumental records. Currently he is leading research programs to assess the impact of climate change in New England and to reconstruct climate change from ice cores recovered from glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau and in the Arctic. Dr. Wake also directs Carbon Solutions New England, a public-private partnership promoting collective action to achieve a clean, secure energy future while sustaining our unique cultural and natural resources. Dr. Wake advises graduate student research and teaches several classes at UNH including Global Environmental Change, Earth System Science, and Climate and Health. He also led a team that produced a Design Guide for Earth System Science Education that summarizes the lessons learned from 15 years of NASA supported education programs. He serves on the UNH Energy Task Force and serves as chief scientific advisor for Clean-Air-Cool Planet, a not-for-profit organization finding and promoting solutions to global warming.