National Council Leadership

Hillary Knepper spent 20 years working for nonprofits and local governments, where she worked primarily in access to services for vulnerable populations, facilitating collaborations, program evaluation and board governance. She teaches health care management, policy and public administration courses at Pace University where she is a full professor. She is a founding board member for the Northeast Conference on Public Administration and an active member and past chair for ASPA's Section for Women in Public Administration. She has been co-president for Academic Women in Public Administration (2021-2023) and served as the program co-chair for ASPA’s 2024 Annual Conference.

Knepper’s research focuses on intersectionality and equity, with particular emphasis on marginalized and vulnerable populations. She is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Equity and Public Administration and an editorial board member for Public Money & Management. Her recent scholarship appears in Public Administration Review, Administrative Theory & Praxis, and the Journal of Public Administration Education.

Roseanne Mirabella is associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Public Affairs at Kean University. For 30 years prior to this, she was professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs and executive director of the Center for Community Research and Engagement at Seton Hall University. She conducts research on philanthropy and nonprofit management education, international education for managers of nongovernmental organizations and critical perspectives on nonprofit organizations. She is co-editor of the Handbook of Critical Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizing and Voluntary Action, a comprehensive survey of critical scholarship within the field. She also co-edited Reframing Nonprofit Organizations: Democracy, Inclusion and Social Change, which provides students of nonprofit organizations with critical perspectives not typically included in the curriculum. She is past president of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action and ASPA’s New Jersey Chapter. For more than 30 years, together with her students, she has assisted many local, community-based organizations in planning, programming and social change initiatives. She is most proud of the current work she is doing with the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery in Newark with her MPA capstone students partnering with local nonprofits. She received the 2019 Academic of the Year Award from the New Jersey Chapter and in 2024 received the lifetime award for Distinguished Achievement and Leadership in Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research Award from ARNOVA.

Malcolm Oliver is dean of the John S. Watson School of Public Service at Thomas Edison State University, where he leads programs serving more than 450 adult learners across master’s, bachelor’s and associate degree levels. The Watson School’s fully online programs are designed to equip public and nonprofit practitioners with the knowledge and skills necessary to lead in complex and diverse environments. He previously served as associate dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Excelsior University, overseeing seven online master’s programs and more than 2,000 nontraditional learners. Earlier in his career, he directed Master of Public Policy and Administration programs at California Lutheran University, National Louis University and The College of New Rochelle. Before transitioning to higher education, he worked in local government as a city planner in California and Texas, grounding his academic leadership in real-world public service experience. A dedicated member of the public administration community, he serves on the executive council of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration and on the governing council of ASPA’s New Jersey Chapter, where he is vice president for academic programs. Oliver holds a PhD in public and urban administration from the University of Texas at Arlington and an MPA from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. His leadership reflects a lifelong commitment to advancing public service education, promoting ethical and inclusive governance and fostering collaboration across academia and practice. As an educator, practitioner and advocate for public service excellence, he seeks to strengthen ASPA’s role as a bridge between the classroom and the community.

Marlon Brown is director of the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA). In this role, he leads the state agency responsible for licensing and regulating nearly 2 million individuals and entities covering health professionals and facilities, skilled-trades and other professional occupations, corporations and securities, construction services, cannabis businesses and fire services. LARA also supports the work of Michigan’s Public Service Commission, Liquor Control Commission, Indigent Defense Commission, Unarmed Combat Commission, Tax Tribunal and Office of Administrative Hearings and Rules.

Prior to his appointment as director, Brown served as the department’s acting director, chief administrative officer and director of policy and legislative affairs. In addition, he has held positions at the Michigan Supreme Court, the Michigan Department of Transportation and the State Budget Office. He also is a former city councilmember and mayor pro tem for the City of Mason, Michigan. Brown earned a bachelor's degree in political science from American University, a master's degree in public administration from the University of Delaware and a doctorate in public administration from Valdosta State University.

Phillip Carlisle has served as Washington English Center (WEC)’s director of development since 2022. He works to foster community among long-time donors while building new bridges to private foundations and corporate partners. He oversees WEC's individual giving, estate planning and event programs, and is responsible for raising more than $1 million in annual revenue. Previously, he worked at the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the nation’s largest association for public administrators. He served most recently as ASPA’s director of strategic development and advancement. In that role, he oversaw ASPA’s Founders’ Fellows program, supported its executive director on board governance and endowment-related work, and significantly grew its institutional membership program.

Thomas H. Stanton is an attorney who has dedicated his career to strengthening government programs, policies and organizations, including agencies in the Departments of Agriculture, Education and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Small Business Administration, OMB, GAO and CBO. He is a former federal senior executive and former president of the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management (AFERM), dedicated to improving government risk management. At AFERM, he partnered with ASPA to host a Washington, DC-based forum on public sector enterprise risk management. In 2018, AFERM awarded him its Hall of Fame Award. He is an ASPA Life Member. Stanton is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), served on its board of directors and, for many years, as chair of the NAPA Panel on Executive Organization and Management. He serves on the steering committee of NAPA’s Panel on Social Equity in Governance. In 2017, NAPA awarded him its George Graham Award for Exceptional Service to the Academy. In 2025, ASPA awarded him the Chester A. Newland Presidential Citation of Merit.

Stanton served as lead staff member on governance and risk management for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Excellence in Public Leadership at The George Washington University. He is co-editing a book on federal loan and loan guarantee programs as instruments of government policy. His published books on finance include Why Some Firms Thrive While Others Fail: Governance and Management Lessons from the Crisis; and A State of Risk: Will Government-Sponsored Enterprises Be the Next Financial Crisis?, which helped lead to the creation of a financial regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His most recent book was American Race Relations and the Legacy of British Colonialism. He has written extensively for Public Administration Review and other journals. Earlier in his career, NACo awarded him its Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to the intergovernmental partnership.

Shaoming Cheng is a professor in the department of public policy and administration at Florida International University’s (FIU) Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs and serves as managing editor of Public Administration Quarterly. His research focuses on entrepreneurship and small business development policy, spatial econometric modeling, firm location decisions in response to policy incentives, and regional economic health and development. He has led and contributed to funded projects totaling over $3 million, supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Kauffman Foundation and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and has published a monograph along with numerous peer-reviewed articles. He is a past commissioner of NASPAA’s Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA), an active member of ASPA and NASPAA and a strong supporter of ASPA South Florida Chapter events. A hallmark of his leadership is his dedication to mentorship and professional development, investing significant time in guiding faculty and students, fostering research and strengthening professional growth through ASPA and local partnerships. Cheng earned his Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University.

Cheng is an active member of ASPA, NASPAA and RSAI, and a strong collaborator and sponsor of many ASPA South Florida events. One of the hallmarks of his leadership is his dedication to mentorship and professional development. He invests significant time and effort in supporting faculty members and student organizations, guiding research pursuits and encouraging professional growth via ASPA and local partnerships. As a result, the department has produced many accomplished scholars and practitioners who have gone on to contribute significantly to the field and ASPA chapters. He received his Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University.

Donovan L. Segura is associate vice Chancellor for compliance at the Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center and professor of public policy at Southern University and A&M College, the flagship campus of the nation’s only Historically Black College and University system and a designated Carnegie R2 research institution. With more than a decade of distinguished experience in academia, public policy and institutional leadership, he is recognized nationally for his expertise in public administration, governance and organizational leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Southern University and A&M College and has completed executive education certificate programs at the University of Michigan and Penn State University. His scholarly work addresses critical contemporary issues, including environmental justice and social policy. A committed public servant, he serves on multiple governing boards, including ServeLouisiana, Louisiana’s longest-standing AmeriCorps program, and is a past president of the Conference of Minority Public Administrators. He also is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. Segura is married to Basirat and together they are the proud parents of one daughter, Lilliana Grace.

Eric Zeemering serves as professor and director of the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Georgia. His writing on local government management and intergovernmental relations includes the recent co-edited book, Cooperation and Conflict between State and Local Government. During the winter semester of 2014, he was Fulbright visiting research chair in governance and public administration at the University of Ottawa. He is a proponent of service-learning and received the 2025 Service-Learning Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Georgia. His interest in local government led to his elected service on the city council in Rockford, Michigan (1999-2001) and appointed service on the Kent County Housing Commission (2003-2006) and the Daly City Parks and Recreation Commission (2009-2011). He received his PhD in political science from Indiana University in 2007 and his BA from Aquinas College in 2001. When not at work, he is a prolific consumer of coffee and enjoys camping. He regularly can be found with his family at an ice rink, cheering on the UGA Ice Dawgs or supporting his two boys in their hockey adventures.

Tom Becker has had three public service careers and has remained active in public service since his retirement in 2019. He is a past president of ASPA's Iowa Chapter and now serves as the Chapter's treasurer. He became a member of ASPA’s National Council representing District 4 in 2023. He is a recipient of ASPA’s National Public Service Award (2019). He was commissioned as an Air Force officer in 1974, as a distinguished graduate of Air Force ROTC and designated a judge advocate in 1977 after graduation from the Washburn University School of Law and admission to the Kansas bar. He served 22 years in the Air Force and retired in the grade of colonel in 1999 to accept then-Governor Tom Vilsack’s appointment as state public defender for the State of Iowa, supervising 20 public defender offices and contracting with more than 800 private attorneys to provide indigent defense services. After Vilsack left office, Becker took on new duties as an administrative law judge for the state until returning to the Air Force in a civilian capacity as academic director of the Air Force JAG School. He was responsible for all curriculum oversight, continued approval of the JAG School’s paralegal courses by the American Bar Association, attorney faculty training and development and coordination of the JAG School’s outside teaching responsibilities. He also taught classes in constitutional law, administrative law, legal ethics and government ethics to Air Force attorneys and senior leaders. After retiring from the civil service, he returned to Iowa and began teaching in the paralegal and business programs at Des Moines Area Community College. He has served as adjunct faculty at five law schools, regular instructor in trial advocacy programs put on by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and guest speaker in many legal training programs. He has conducted online training webinars for Iowa criminal defense attorneys through the state public defender’s office and is a volunteer attorney for the Iowa Legal Aid Volunteer Lawyer Project. In 1996, he received an advanced degree in constitutional and criminal law from The George Washington University School of Law. He is an active member in good standing of the bars of the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa and the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Alex Trembley is an analytics and CQI manager in Hennepin County Human Services, Minnesota, where he focuses on process improvement and data-informed decisionmaking. He previously served as a paramedic in the twin cities. He resides in St. Paul with his wife, Lauren, and daughter, Joelle. Trembley holds an MPA from The University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh and is nearing the completion of a DPA at Valdosta State University.

Kitty Wooley worked 19 years at the U.S. Department of Education after a decade in college administration. Positions in San Francisco and Washington, DC involved work as an institutional review specialist, risk specialist and management and program analyst. For example: In 1996 and 1997, she managed a risk management system project intended to reduce the risk of loss of government funds, helped roll it out to 10 federal student aid offices and briefed regional inspector general auditors. The system gave the agency an integrated view of funds and a big picture on cash drawdowns vs. supporting student records for the first time. From January to April 2002, she did handholding on a national scale after a service delivery failure via biweekly conference calls to convince early-adopter university financial aid directors, university IT staffs and financial aid contractors serving small college clients not to drop out of the initial rollout of a groundbreaking system designed to integrate Pell Grant and direct loan administration and improve electronic funds reconciliation and ease of use. In 2012, with OMB colleagues and retired budget experts, she led three interagency flash mentoring sessions that connected executive branch budget leaders with newer budget staff in 6 cabinet agencies in order to transfer tacit knowledge and foster a collegial network.

Through the Senior Fellows and Friends network, Woolley has convened and connected practitioners and academics since 2003. She wrote articles for The Public Manager and served on the planning committee for several Excellence in Government Conferences. She also wrote “Four New Models of Networked Leadership Development” in Innovations in Human Resource Management: Getting the Public’s Work Done in the 21st Century, published in 2009 by M.E. Sharpe (Vol. 8 in the National Academy of Public Administration book series, Transformational Trends in Governance and Democracy). Her new book, From Networking to Boundary Spanning: How You Can Get Results Inside Large Organizations, was published by Bookbaby in 2026.

Edgar Ramirez de la Cruz is professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He served as director of the Public Administration Division at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City until 2002. Before working at CIDE, he was assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. He earned his Ph.D. in public administration and policy from the Askew School at Florida State University.

Ramirez’s primary interest as a researcher is urban governance. His research has been published in some of the most prestigious journals in the field and he has participated in and edited various notable journals. During his professional career, he has worked as a consultant for public, non-profit and public universities in Mexico and the United States. In his service to ASPA, he organized and hosted the 4th and 6th International Young Scholars Workshop in Mexico City and Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico. He has served on the SIAM and SICA Executive Committees and participates in several committees of ASPA. ASPA awarded him the 2019 International Public Administration Award.

Joel Vallett is an experienced educator and public policy expert, specializing in public administration, policy analysis and ethical leadership. He serves as assistant professor at Southern Utah University, where he contributes to the MPA program by teaching courses in public policy, research methods, ethics and program evaluation. He earned his PhD in public policy and administration from Boise State University, where his dissertation focused on incentivizing effective reporting laws for child abuse prevention. His research has been featured in leading journals such as the Policy Studies Journal, State and Local Government Review and Administration & Society. His publications explore policy adoption, the role of policy entrepreneurs and mandatory reporting laws, including his recent work on the widespread diffusion of Erin’s Law, aimed at improving child abuse reporting protocols across the United States. Beyond academia, he has held leadership roles in professional organizations, serving as president of ASPA's Utah Chapter. In this role, he focused on serving and educating public administrators from across the State of Utah, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of under-represented populations. He has led study abroad programs in South Korea, Denmark and Kenya, bringing international perspectives into his teaching and research. With a robust background in quantitative analysis and a commitment to public service, his work aims to bridge academia and practice to foster more effective, ethically grounded public administrators.

Miha Vindis is professor of practice at Texas State University and director of the Texas Certified Public Manager (CPM) Program. In this capacity, he leads efforts to equip public sector professionals with critical leadership and management skills. Additionally, he is a member of the Executive National Council of the National CPM Consortium, contributing to shaping the strategic direction and partnerships of the CPM program nationwide. He also holds an adjunct assistant professor position at the University of Texas at Austin’s Red McCombs School of Business, where he teaches in the prestigious McCombs Summer Institutes and the Summer Entrepreneurship Academy, part of the Harkey Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. His role includes leading the practicum course for aspiring entrepreneurs and teaching management courses emphasizing experiential learning and real-world problem-solving. With a professional career spanning Europe, Asia and North America, he has worked for global organizations such as Deloitte and Royal Dutch Shell. He also is a founding partner at Engage Leadership Consulting, providing strategic leadership consulting for public, private and nonprofit organizations. In addition to his teaching and consulting, he serves as board president for Habitat for Humanity Texas, aligning his expertise with his passion for community service. He also is an active mentor and investor, supporting social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders. Outside of his professional work, he enjoys baking and is an avid biker. He holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin. His current research focuses on the opportunities and limitations of applied artificial intelligence tools in local government.