Dr. Michael Barber
Faculty Development Coordinator, CTE

Michael Barber joined the team at the Center for Teaching Excellence at UF in 2022. He is passionate about learning and teaching, and loves the synergy that he feels when a group gathers to discuss how to improve as learners and teachers. With over 25 years of teaching experience in higher education and a doctorate degree in educational psychology, Michael is always excited to share things he’s learning. He is on a mission to dismantle the paradigms that have made learning and teaching feel artificial and institutional rather than instinctive, social, experiential, and fun. Outside of work, he enjoys baking, DIY projects, and spending time with his family.

Dr. Garrett Beatty

Director of Academic Technology & Innovation, College of Health & Human Performance

Instructional Associate Professor, Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology

Dr. Garrett Beatty is the Director of Academic Technology & Innovation in the College of Health & Human Performance where he facilitates instructional technology implementation, College supported instructional continuing education, and initiatives to imbed Artificial Intelligence within the curriculum. Garrett also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology where he coordinates the Department’s Master of Science program.

Dr. Natalie Coers
Instructional Assistant Professor, Agricultural Education & Communication

Dr. Natalie Coers is an instructional assistant professor with a split appointment between the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) Dean’s office and the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural Education and Communication (AEC). Coers is primarily in charge of the CALS Leadership Institute and the Challenge 2050 Program.

Dr. Joel Davis

Clinical Professor Warrington College of Business

Dr. Joel Davis is a Clinical Professor in the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida. Joel has 25 years of commercial experience in analytics, AI, and business operations. Most recently he was Chief Strategy Officer at Revenue Management Solutions, a company that assists the restaurant and retail industry identify profitability opportunities through data-driven analytics, where he was responsible for leading the company’s emerging analytics and data strategy discipline.

Dr. Davis teaches introductory programming, Artificial Intelligence Methods, and IT strategy courses. His current research is centered around 2 big ideas:

• [1] the integration of analytics and artificial intelligence solutions into business decision-making, and effective AI solution adoption strategies within corporations.
• [2] Opportunities/risks at the intersection of AI and Blockchain as enabling technologies of a (yet to be developed) metaverse.

In addition to his clinical faculty role, Joel also serves as the Executive Director of the David F. Miller Retail Center at Warrington

Kristen Fussell

Student

The University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Graduating with an A.A. at Florida State College at Jacksonville, Kristen is currently enrolled in UF Online’s bachelor’s degree program where she is majoring in sociology. While working on her higher education, she began volunteering her time with multiple animal protection and welfare non-profit organizations. With these organizations, she helps reunite lost pets with their owners, provide support and education to the public, as well as train fellow volunteers. Through her volunteering, she has realized helping others is her passion as she assists people in their time of need through outreach and direct communication, as well as social media administration. Despite having a physical disability, she is determined to not let it define her and raise awareness of invisible disabilities.

Dr. Ryan Good
Instructional Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment

Dr. Ryan Z. Good is an instructional assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Florida. Dr. Good teaches a variety of courses in environmental science and serves as lead instructor for the SNRE’s introductory general education program.

Dr. Gabriela Hamerlinck
Assistant Instructional Professor, Geography

Gabriela Hamerlinck is an assistant instructional professor of medical geography and global health in the Department of Geography. She completed her PhD in Biology at the University of Iowa, and completed postdoctoral positions in quantitative biology education and vector borne disease modeling. Her academic interests include ecological modeling of host-parasite interactions to understand the spread of disease, and discipline based education research.

Christopher D. Hampson
Assistant Professor of Law, Levin College of Law

Professor Hampson is a scholar of bankruptcy, insolvency, and the ethics of debt.  Prior to joining Florida Law, Professor Hampson practiced law at WilmerHale in Boston, where he led litigation and transactional teams as part of the firm’s bankruptcy and financial restructuring group.  Prior to joining WilmerHale, Professor Hampson served as a law clerk for Judge Richard A. Posner on the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and worked at White & Case LLP in Miami.

Allyson Haskell
Senior Instructional Designer

Allyson has worked in instructional design and delivery across K12 and higher ed settings since 2008. After completing her M.E. in Electrical Engineering she decided to make Gainesville her home and has worked at UF for most of her career. In addition to facilitating course design and development she also teaches workshops for faculty focused on course design and teaching with technology, and has presented at OLC Accelerate, Educause, and AALHE conferences.

Ricardo Andrés López Celi

Lecturer

Ricardo is a lecturer at Universidad San Francisco de Quito. His passion is finding solutions for different life problems through the language of math. After finishing his master’s degree in applied Math, part of his work has been teaching and spreading his enthusiasm for math. In the last seven years, he has been teaching math and statistics in different formats for undergraduate and graduate students. Nowadays, he is interested in ways to broaden his students' understanding of different cultures and math applications using virtual exchanges.

Darcie MacMahon
Associate Director/Director of Exhibits & Public Programs Florida Museum of Natural History

Darcie MacMahon has worked in the museum field for more than 25 years, and currently oversees the Florida Museum’s public experience, from exhibitions and educational programs to earned income and live butterflies. Her archaeology background led her to exhibition development, and over the years she has developed numerous permanent, temporary, and traveling exhibitions of various levels of complexity and cost. MacMahon’s passion is inspiring people to care about life on Earth.

Dr. Diba Mani
Instructional Assistant Professor, Applied Physiology & Kinesiology

Diba (UF 2021-2022 Undergraduate Teacher of the Year) has experience teaching small- and large-enrollment undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in-person, hybrid, and fully online. Amid the changes in higher education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she completed many workshops and seminars to learn and incorporate different teaching techniques and opportunities for her students, expanding her passionate about integrating internationalization in her courses, course accessibility, and authentic assessments more than ever.

Megan Mocko

Lecturer

Megan Mocko is a lecturer at the Warrington College of Business. Megan has taught statistics in multiple formats: face-to-face, hybrid, and completely online. She is interested in engaging everyone in the classroom using educational technology, learning analytics, and virtual exchanges to promote communication about data across international boundaries.

Dr. Amy Parziale

Instructional Assistant Professor

Dr. Parziale teaches professional writing and communication in the Management Communication Center.  Her 15+ years of experience has ranged from teaching writing and humanities at Rollins College and Tulane University to working in nonprofit administration and business ethics education.  Her scholarship reflects this diversity of interests. Dr. Parziale enjoys connecting with her students to find passions they can bring to their writing and presentations.

Dr. Becky Piazza, OTD, MS, OTR/L, BCPR
Clinical Assistant Professor

Dr. Becky Piazza is a Clinical Assistant Professor who joined the Department of Occupational Therapy in January 2021. Dr. Piazza completed her bachelors of science in occupational therapy at The University of Florida, her masters of science in occupational therapy at San Jose State University, and her clinical doctorate in occupational therapy at Chatham University. She is a licensed occupational therapist with over 20 years’ experience and is board certified in physical rehabilitation.

As an occupational therapist, Dr. Piazza has worked across multiple settings including the K-12 public school system, adult inpatient rehabilitation, adult outpatient rehabilitation. Dr. Piazza previously served as the clinical coordinator for occupational therapy and recreational therapy at UF Health Shands Rehab Hospital, as a primary occupational therapist for the UF Health Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases concussion clinic, and as an Academic Fieldwork Coordinator (AFWC).

In the Doctor of Occupational Therapy program, Dr. Piazza teaches Clinical Skills 1, Clinical Skills 2, Occupational Therapy Service Delivery and Organization, Advocacy and Interprofessional Skills, and Leadership and Professional Development. Dr. Piazza serves regularly in a faculty role at the Occupational Therapy Equal Access Clinic and co-chairs the department’s continuing education program committee. She also serves on the American Occupational Therapy Association’s (AOTA) Roster of Accreditation Evaluators (RAE), assisting the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) in the evaluation of occupational therapy educational programs. Dr. Piazza is an active member of AOTA, the American Occupational Therapy Political Action Committee (AOTPAC), the Florida Occupational Therapy Association (FOTA), and the North Central Florida Occupational Therapy Forum.

Luis Mejia-Puig Ph.D
Assistant Professor, Department of Interior Design

Luis Mejia-Puig is an Assistant Professor in Interior Design and runs the DC2 Lab at the University of Florida. He has a design background and holds a Ph.D., from Oklahoma State University. His research explores how digital media tools affect the design process and cognition. His design research approach combining psychometric and physiological instruments opens opportunities for multidisciplinary research.

Jeffery Pufahl

Research Assistant Professor

Jeffrey is a Research Assistant Professor and publicly engaged applied theatre scholar in the Center for Arts in Medicine and was the UF College of the Arts Undergraduate Teacher of the Year in 2020 and International Educator of the Year in 2022. Jeffrey’s work at UF is a combination of teaching applied theater, directing and producing health related theater and film projects, community engaged research/research translation, and health communication. His local and international research focuses on how the arts, specifically theatre and video, can be used to investigate community health issues in order to catalyze public engagement and critical dialogue around health and wellness.

Kathryn Rush
Instructional Designer III

In addition to being an instructional designer at the University of Florida College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kathryn has taught at the University of Florida, Florida State University, and Santa Fe College. Her visual art M.F.A. degree is from the University of Florida. She has conducted faculty training on course development and has presented at TopKit and the Distance Learning Administration Conference.

Dr. Eric Segal
Director of Education, Harn Museum of Art

Dr. Eric Segal collaborates with faculty across all units of the university to foster interdisciplinary programs and to develop creative ways to join the museum with curricular activities. These include tours, museum assignments, experiential visits and other program activities. He also leads the Education team in developing programming for exhibitions, learning opportunities for college students and for preK-12 students, educational experiences for all, and outreach activities that connect with the community. He holds a Ph.D. in Art History from UCLA.

Dr. Jessica Sheffield

Instructional Assistant Professor

Dr. Sheffield teaches professional writing and communication in the Warrington College of Business’ MBA, Specialized Masters, and Master of Accounting programs. She enjoys learning about her students’ business interests and passions through their writing and presentations.

Dr. Rachel Slivon

Director and Instructional Associate Professor

Dr. Slivon is the Director of the Management Communication Center in the Warrington College of Business. She teaches professional communication and writing in the specialized masters and MBA programs. Dr. Slivon has over fifteen years of experience teaching and developing courses and workshops in oral and written communication for undergraduate and graduate students. Prior to joining the Management Communication Center, she developed and taught courses in technical writing, professional writing for engineers, and public speaking.

Sean Trainor

Instructional Assistant Professor

Dr. Trainor teaches workplace writing and presenting in the Management Communication Center. He has close to fifteen years of experience teaching in a variety of fields, including workplace communication, history, humanities, writing for journalism, and academic writing. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, TIME, Salon, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and other publications. He is currently working on a co-authored open-source textbook on workplace communication.

Denise de Cássia Moreira Zornoff, Ph.D.

Academic Support Assistant

Denise Zornoff is an infectious diseases physician, working at Botucatu Medical School UNESP as Administrative Coordinator of the Pedagogical Support Center. She is part of the faculty development team, as an innovation technologies coach, and collaborates with the local internationalization actions, such as The Brazilian Virtual Exchange Program (BRaVE).