Faculty Fellows

Garrett Beatty, Ph.D.,

Garrett Beatty, Ph.D., is the Assistant Dean for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UF College of Health and Human Performance. Garrett collaborates with students, staff, faculty, campus partners and industry to promote opportunities for innovation across the college’s educational and enterprise endeavors. Garrett is a fierce advocate for advancing responsible AI in education, leading curricular and co-curricular programs at the college and university. Garrett serves on the UF AI Education Committee, has led faculty learning communities in AI education, and aspires to incorporate emerging and relevant AI applications within his own courses.

He also supports corporate investment in students and faculty, commercialization of discoveries, and adoption of emerging technologies within the college’s curricula. Garrett’s background includes consulting within industry to leverage his expertise in perception-action coupling, eye-tracking technology, and human training platforms. To date, his consulting work contributed to multiple patents, successful startup funding rounds, and novel data analytic approaches in human performance organizations.

Michelle Z Farland, Pharm.D.

Dr. Farland received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy in 2005. She completed a pharmacy practice residency at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center (now UF Health at Jacksonville) in Jacksonville, Florida and a specialty residency in Ambulatory care/Primary care at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Farland joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy in 2007 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. She then joined the faculty of the University of Florida in 2015 and was promoted to Clinical Professor in 2021. In 2025, she was appointed as the inaugural chair of the Department of Pharmacy Education and Practice.

Previously, she was Division Head of Community-Based Pharmacotherapy. Her educational research focuses on outcomes of team-based learning and personal, professional development, and alternative grading approaches. Dr. Farland has been recognized by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) with the 2012 New Educator Award, by the Team Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC) in 2016 as a team-based learning consultant-trainer, and by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) in 2017 as an Emerging Teaching Scholar and 2025 as a Distinguished Teaching Scholar. She also received an honorable mention for the AACP Innovations in Teaching Award in 2019 and the ACCP Education & Training PRN Best Paper Award in 2024. In addition, she served as the vice chair of the AACP Academic Affairs Committee [2022-2023] that authored the Curricular Outcomes and Entrustable Professional Activities (COEPA 2022), which guides curriculum development for the pharmacy education academy.

Dr. Farland is a past president of the Team-Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC) [2019-2021], and is a member of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), and Phi Lambda Sigma Pharmacy Leadership Society (PLS). Dr. Farland has served as a national speaker in the areas of diabetes, team-based learning, collaborative learning teams, alternative grading approaches, and situational judgment tests.

Michael Hodges, PT, MHS, DPT

Michael Hodges is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Clinical Education for the University of Florida Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program. He is also a faculty mentor and supervising clinician for the UF DPT Equal Access pro-bono clinic. Prior to his role with UF, he was a full-time physical therapy clinician (primarily in outpatient orthopedics) for 30 years. He served as a clinical instructor for 29 years and was awarded the Outstanding Clinical Instructor award by the University of Florida DPT program in 2014. Additionally, he was a UF Health orthopedic physical therapy residency mentor for 8 years and coordinator for 3 years. He is passionate about student mentoring and development and has teaching responsibilities in Examination/Evaluation for the PT Patient, Screening for Medical Referral, and Musculoskeletal Disorders.

Heather Young, Ph.D.,

Dr. Heather Young is an instructional assistant professor of agricultural communication in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication (AEC) at the University of Florida.

Young earned her Associate in Applied Science in Agricultural Business and Bachelor of Technology in Dairy Management from Morrisville State College – SUNY Morrisville – in 2008 and 2010, respectively. After graduation, she interned for Upstate Niagara Cooperative (Buffalo, NY) to develop their animal wellbeing program. Then, she worked for Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), Inc. – Northeast (Syracuse, NY) as a senior field representative, certified milk inspector, and National FARM program trainer and evaluator from 2010 to 2020. After eight years in the industry, Young returned to school to pursue her master’s degree in agricultural education and communication while still working for DFA through the University of Florida’s distance learning option, completing her degree in 2019. Deciding to continue pursuing her education, she left DFA and northern New York in 2020. She moved her family from the Canadian border to Florida to attend UF in person to obtain her doctorate from AEC, graduating in 2023.

Young was born and raised in central New York on her family’s dairy farm, which has been operating on the same ground as was settled by her family in 1862. She spent many years working to promote the dairy industry and educate the public on the importance of agriculture. Her master’s non-thesis project was titled “Educating the Public with an Open Gate.” This project was created to help farmers better communicate the “Why” behind what they do to the general non-agricultural public. Her dissertation explored the impacts of cooperative learning paired with the case study teaching method on students’ critical thinking ability regarding Issues in Agricultural and Life Sciences at the collegiate level.  

Though her career is just beginning, Young has developed an interest in cooperative group learning and its impact on critical thinking ability and student engagement.