Heartland Certified Public Manager Annual Conference Speakers
Dr. Christopher Koliba | Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor
Christopher Koliba is the Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor of Public Administration, Policy & Governance at the University of Kansas School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA). He possesses a Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Social Science Program an MPA from Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and a BS in Finance from the Whitman School of Business at Syracuse University. Prior to joining the SPAA faculty in 2023, he served as Professor in the Community Development and Applied Economics Department at the University of Vermont where he served as the Director or Co-Director of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program for many years. In 2020 he established UVM’s first Office of Engagement to serve as the “front door” to the university and incubator of community-university partnerships. Chris has had substantial research administration leadership as well, serving as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Social Ecological Gaming and Simulation (SEGS) Lab, Associate Director of Vermont EPSCoR, and a fellow at the Gund Institute for Environment. He was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in the fall of 2023.
Chris enjoys teaching courses pertaining to public policy and public affairs, public administration, organizational theory and behavior, sustainable and resilient communities, systems analysis and strategic management, and the intersection of science and society. He has advised and supported countless students completing their doctoral dissertations, master’s thesis, and undergraduate research thesis.
He is married, father to three children and one grandchild. He likes to paint, hike, paddle, meditate and listen to world music.
Ashley Muddiman | Professor
Dr. Ashley Muddiman earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research broadly explores political media effects. More specifically, she studies political incivility, including citizens’ perceptions of incivility as well as the effects of political incivility in online settings. She also is a faculty research associate with the Center for Media Engagement (CME), which is housed at the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work with CME has explored shifting norms in digital news spaces, for instance how journalists and news users engage with partisan incivility in online comments, how journalists can intervene in comment sections to make them a bit less uncivil, and how clickbait headlines set expectations for news users. Her work has been published in the Journal of Communication, International Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, and the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, among other publications. Dr. Muddiman teaches courses at the graduate and undergraduate level, including courses in political communication, mass media and politics, new media and politics, political campaigns, and introduction to research methods.
