Lead Well: Foundations of Academic Leadership

This program is designed to support academic leaders in developing skills across personal, interpersonal, team and systems-based levels. Example session topics include:

• The Balancing Acts of Academic Leadership
• Understanding the Anatomy of Trust
• The Five Paths to Leadership
• Facilitating Effective Meetings
• Using Emotional Intelligence to Engage in Difficult Dialogues
• Providing Effective Feedback
• Active Listening: Exploring the Power of Mentoring
• Building High Performing Teams
• Prioritizing Programs
• Resilience

The cohort is open to academic leaders who possess a growth mindset and are eager to practice their leadership in new ways, reflect on their strengths and opportunities for growth and create a shared network of like-minded colleagues across CMU’s campus.

Criteria

• Role: Current or new department head, associate dean or similar academic leadership position.

• History: Must not have participated in the Lead Well program previously.

• Commitment: Must commit to attending all sessions.

  • Note for International Leaders: Leaders from international locations are eligible but must attend the day-long workshops that are in person in Pittsburgh.

Nominations for the 2026-2027 cohort are open from February 1 – March 1, 2026.

How to Apply

1. Nominate: Participants can self-nominate or be nominated by a dean or leadership member by completing the form below.

2. Review: The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty reviews applications.

3. Selection: Candidates are notified of their status before the end of the spring semester. Those selected will receive formal acceptance letters with further details about the program.

Nicky Agate
Associate Dean for Academic Engagement
University Libraries

Nicky Agate is Associate Dean for Academic Engagement at CMU Libraries and Editorial Director of Carnegie Mellon University Press. An advocate for open science and for keeping the humanities in the loop, she is also interested in team development; research communication; and embedding metaliteracy in the curriculum. Her current research focuses on values-enacted leadership training and academic culture and assessment reform.

Laurence Ales
Professor of Economics and Senior Associate Dean, Education
Tepper School of Business

Laurence Ales is Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. Professor Ales is currently the Senior Associate Dean for Education at the Tepper School overseeing all the educational portfolio of the school. He joined CMU in 2008. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota in 2008 and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. His research focuses on the design of tax policy and on the labor implication of technological change. Recent work has analyzed how to tax the labor income of highly paid CEOs and how taxes should be designed taking into account location of work and marital status. Looking at the impact of technology Professor Ales has  studied how different types of technologies generate different patterns of automation. His research has been published in journals such as Econometrica, the American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Theory. Prof. Ales serves as an Associate Editor at Macroeconomic Dynamics. At the Tepper School, Professor Ales currently teaches courses for the MBA program and for Executive Education.

Daniel Cardoso Llach
Associate Professor and Computational Design Laboratory Director, School of Architecture; Associate Dean for Faculty and Graduate Affairs, College of Fine Arts
Architecture
College of Fine Arts

Daniel Cardoso Llach is the author of Builders of the Vision: Software and the Imagination of Design (2015) and Designing the Computational Image (2023, with T. Vardouli) among other works at the intersection of the science and technology studies (STS), computing history, and design. At Carnegie Mellon University he is Associate Professor of Architecture and directs the Computational Design Laboratory—a research and learning laboratory critically exploring the interplay of computing and creative practices. Since 2025 Daniel is Associate Dean for Faculty and Graduate Affairs for the College of Fine Arts, where he leads mentoring initiatives for faculty and graduate students and supports the advancement of graduate studies in the arts. He received an MS (with honors) and a PhD (as a Presidential Fellow) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States, and a professional B. Arch from Universidad de los Andes in his native Bogotá.

Fuad Farooqi
Teaching Professor Finance, and Area Head
Business Administration Program
CMU-Q

Fuad Farooqi is the Area Head for the Business Administration Program and a Teaching Professor of Finance at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ). He has taught core and elective courses in finance, strategy, analytics, as well as some first year courses in the business program, and has designed several courses tailored to the Qatar market. Fuad is the co-creator of the CMUQ SmartLab, which provides students with hands-on learning experiences, and also served as Co-Director of the QIA Center at CMUQ. Before joining academia, he spent more than seven years in corporate and investment banking with ABN AMRO N.V. He has also taught at leading Canadian business schools at both the undergraduate and MBA levels.

John Gasper
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs
Tepper School of Business

Dr. John Gasper is the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs and a Teaching Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. He holds three degrees from Carnegie Mellon, including a Ph.D. in Political Economy. He has taught over 3,000 students at CMU and served in various leadership roles at Tepper including inaugural Director of Learning Evaluation and Success and Assistant Dean of Strategic Initiatives.

Amelia Haviland
E.J. Barone Professor of Health Systems Management
Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy

Meredith Meyer Grelli
Managing Director & Interim Executive Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
Assistant Dean of Entrepreneurship Initiatives, School of Computer Science
Associate Professor, Tepper School of Business

Meredith Meyer Grelli is the Interim Executive Director of the Swartz Center. She also serves as the Managing Director of the Swartz Center; the Assistant Dean for Entrepreneurship Initiatives in the School of Computer Science and the Director of Project Olympus. Meredith is also an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Tepper School of Business. In her roles, Meredith leads a team that supports student, staff, faculty and alumni founders through an extensive architecture of programs and early stage funding. Prior to her work in academia, Meredith was an entrepreneur and operator. She founded, scaled, and sold one of CMU’s top 100 affiliated exits.

Srinivasa Narasimhan
U.A. and Helen Whitaker Professor of Robotics
The Robotics Institute
School of Computer Science

Srinivasa Narasimhan is the Interim Director and the U.A. and Helen Whitaker Professor of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. His group focuses on novel imaging techniques to enable applications in vision, graphics, robotics, agriculture, intelligent transportation and healthcare. His works have received over a dozen Best Paper or Best Demo or Honorable mention awards. In addition, he has received the Ford URP Award (2013), Okawa Research Grant (2009) and the NSF CAREER Award (2007). He serves as Lead or Senior Area Chair of top computer vision conferences (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, BMVC, ACCV, 3DV).

Richard Nisa
Associate Dean and Program Lead, Sustainability
Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) Program
University Libraries

I am the Associate Dean of Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) program, a role that allows me to do what I love most—learning from dynamic thinkers and finding creative opportunities in interstitial spaces and places. I am also an affiliated faculty member in both Carnegie Mellon Architecture and the Department of History. My research examines the intersections of architecture, technology, and power in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with a focus in the spatial practices of US-managed military detainment. An award-winning teacher, my teaching experience ranges from leading courses on the history of mass surveillance inside three New Jersey prisons to co-teaching a course on the political economy of housing with that state’s former governor.

Ana Pinto da Silva
Professor & Head, School of Design
School of Design
College of Fine Arts

An accomplished designer, technologist, educator, and public speaker, incoming School of Design Head Pinto da Silva is committed to advancing the role designers, technologists, engineers, and researchers play in the development of future-defining technology innovation centered on equity, inclusion, and innovation. Pinto da Silva is dedicated to community service. Inspired by the power of leadership and learnership through community, she is the founder of the Seattle Pecha Kucha speaker series, the founding co-chair of the Harvard GSD’s Global Design Impact initiative, and serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Harvard GSD MDE program, MOHAI, Leadership Tomorrow, and the Nehemiah Initiative.

Joelle Pitts
Senior Associate Dean
Dean’s Office
University Libraries

Joelle Pitts is the Senior Associate Dean for Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, the Entertainment Technology Center, the Integrative Design Arts and Technology program, and the CMU Sustainability Initiative. In that role she is responsible for finances, human resources, operations, assessment, and organizational development of the division. Library access services, technical services including metadata and acquisitions, and digitization also fall under her portfolio. She also serves as the Associate Dean for Faculty for the division. Joelle holds master’s degrees in library science and business administration. Her research areas include: distance education and e-learning theory, design, and assessment; inter-institutional collaboration; collection assessment; as well as the intersections of scholarly communication and information literacy.

Emily Price
Chief Marketing & Communications Officer
Marketing & Communications
School of Computer Science

Emily Price is a marketer and project manager with two decades of experience in NYC and Pittsburgh. Her work spans media pioneer Condé Nast and award-winning creative technology studio Deeplocal. Always drawn to creative people and companies, she has worked in industries ranging from magazine publishing and boutique hospitality to nonprofit performing arts and the agency sector.

Dudley Reynolds
Senior Associate Dean, Education and Teaching Professor of English
Arts and Sciences
CMU-Q

Dudley Reynolds has been the  Senior Associate Dean, Education at CMU in Qatar since 2021 and has been a faculty member in English there since 2007. His research addresses language education policy, developmental patterns in additional language learning, curricular and pedagogical approaches to literacy development, teacher education and learning.  He served as President of TESOL International Association in 2016-2017 and was the 2023 recipient of the James E. Alatis Award for Service to TESOL.

Gordon Rule
Professor
Biological Sciences
Mellon College of Science

Professor Rule has been a faculty member at CMU since 1996.  His main research interest is in biochemistry with an emphasis on using biophysical techniques to understand enzyme function.  He was one of the principals in the creation of the inter-university graduate program in Biophysics and in developing the undergraduate biology degree program on the Qatar campus. He is also active in the development of online material to assist student learning in blended courses.

Matthew Smith
Co-Director, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience Institute
College of Engineering

Smith is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute. His core research interest lies in understanding the brain’s mechanisms for interpreting visual inputs, processing them, and generating motor outputs. Currently he serves as the Co-Director of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, a joint enterprise of Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh.

Christopher Warren
Professor and Head of English
English
Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Christopher Warren is Head of English and Professor of English and History (by courtesy) at Carnegie Mellon University. Warren co-leads Dietrich College's computational humanities initiative and is the author of _Literature and the Law of Nations, 1580-1680_ (Oxford University Press), which was awarded the Roland H. Bainton Prize for Literature.  Warren co-founded Six Degrees of Francis Bacon and directed the NEH-funded project “Freedom and the Press before Freedom of the Press,” which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to discover and center the anonymous craftsmen and -women responsible for printing controversial clandestine materials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.