Executive Master of Public Affairs Faculty

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Charles “Chuck” Barber is Director of Human Resources (J1) at the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency.  In this role, he is responsible for providing expert executive leadership and direction in establishing and maintaining a proactive, visionary, vigorous, human resources program that is responsive to the needs of both DLA management and employees assuring optimum productivity and goal attainment in all program functions.

Prior to arriving at DLA, he served as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In this role, he served as the NSF’s senior advisor responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership and management for ongoing agency programs and new initiatives related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, or DEIA, in the NSF workplace and the STEM enterprise.

Prior to NSF, he was the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs and was a primary author on the Navy’s Task Force One Navy report that led to the Operational Navy’s DE&I Implementation Strategy. He is a TEDx speaker and served as the feature speaker on DEI at the 2022 DAU TEDx conference.

Barber has led a broad range of diversity efforts, development of culture intelligence capabilities, strategy, organizational leadership, critical data analysis and business transformation initiatives to provide world class human resource (HR) and transformational leadership support to a dynamic range of public and private sector clients including military service members, civilians and their families. With more than two decades of experience in HR, Diversity & Inclusion, Business Transformation and Cultural Intelligence, he staunchly advocates for efficiency, transformation and process improvement. He spearheaded development of the Army’s Soldier Record Brief while supporting the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A) during one of the Army’s largest HR Transformation efforts. During his prior service at DLA, he led development of a culture intelligence framework integrating transformational leadership principles. As Director of Business Transformation for the Department of Defense Vetting Directorate, he was a key contributor to the US government’s security clearance and background investigation process improvement effort. He also previously served as Chief Human Capital Officer for the District of Columbia Courts.

Barber became a member of the Senior Executive Service in January 2023.  He holds a doctorate degree in Transformational Leadership from Bakke Graduate University, and other degrees in Organizational Leadership and Business Management from Columbia Southern University and Excelsior College. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a previous guest lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executive Fellows Program for Political Science and Government. He is a U.S. Army veteran with deployments to Kosovo and Iraq. Barber is also a member of the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame.

Doug Brook is a former senior Defense Department official having held three Presidential appointments in financial management and budgeting, including Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Financial Management & Comptroller) and Acting Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer. At Sanford he has taught the introductory MPP course in national security and national security budgeting in both the MPP and MSNP programs. His most recent research has been in support the Congressional Commission on PPBE Reform and in examining the DoD’s presence on the GAO’s high-risk list.

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Heidi Jackson Everett is an experienced public board director (NYSE: NTST), startup advisor, nonprofit board chair, Air Force veteran, Inc. 5000 Chief Executive Officer, and certified executive coach. For over 25 years, Ms. Everett has designed and implemented solutions for public, non-profit, and private sector leaders and organizations to advance society. Her domain expertise includes organizational change management and transformation, organizational development, and human capital.

Ms. Everett founded and leads a management consultancy with public sector clients that include the Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the General Services Administration and various defense and defense health organizations. Ms. Everett guided leaders through the establishment of the Defense Health Agency after the Secretary of Defense ordered a comprehensive review of the Military Health System’s safety, access, and quality standards. Her leadership led to the establishment of performance measures based on top performing health care systems to achieve high reliability for its 9.6M beneficiaries. Ms. Everett’s experience also includes work with private and nonprofit sectors. She has led organizational transformation, global enterprise restructuring and integration, crisis management, new strategy development, change management and executive search and transition. For a Silicon Valley-based technology company specializing in data and storage networking products she developed a new governance operating model and worked with business unit leads to design change management mobilization strategies.

Ms. Everett received a B.S. from Duke University and MBA from Georgetown University.  She is a certified Prosci Change Management Professional, a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and is an International Coaching Federation Professional Certified Coach. Ms. Everett also has deep interest and extensive experience in adult development through designing and delivering leadership development courses and programs. Heidi is also trained and certified in the Leadership Circle, DiSC, Collaborative Operating System, Positive Intelligence, Immunity to Change and vertical development. Ms. Everett’s current public board director role includes service on Nominating and Governance, and Compensation Committees, and she advises the CEO and CFO/COO on human capital and ESG strategies. She lives in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area with her Duke alumnus husband and their two children.

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Patricia Harned is chief executive officer of the Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI). Established in 1922, ECI is a strategic alliance of the two nonprofits that founded and continue to lead the organizational ethics and compliance profession. ECI’s mission is to empower organizations to operate with integrity. 

For 21 years as CEO, Dr. Harned has overseen all of ECI’s strategy and operations. In that time ECI has become the leading provider of independent research about the drivers of workplace integrity. Dr. Harned is a recognized expert on organizational culture change and ethical leadership. She leads ECI’s advisory service practice, helping organizations to implement programs that strengthen culture and encourage safe reporting when employees suspect that wrongdoing is taking place. 

Dr. Harned has provided ethics & compliance briefings to officials in the US Department of Justice, testified before Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and she has personally briefed U.S. Secretary of Defense, the OSHA Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee, and the Federal Bar Council on strategies to increase effective reporting of suspected misconduct. Dr. Harned also regularly provides training to boards of directors on topics related to governance, risk management, and corporate integrity.

Dr. Harned is a multi-year honoree as one of Ethisphere Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics. She is also a multi-year honoree as a Top Thought Leader in Trust; a recognition offered by Trust Across America. She was a member of the PCAOB Standing Advisory Group, and she currently serves on the board of the U.S. Center for SafeSport as well as the International Association of Independent Corporate Monitors (IAICM).

Dr. Harned holds a bachelor of science degree from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, a masters of education degree from Indiana University, and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.  
 

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Asher teaches core courses on domestic politics and policy analysis in the Sanford School’s Master of Public Policy program and leads graduate/undergraduate seminars on legislative advocacy and American democracy. He is also the inaugural faculty director of Duke's executive Master of Public Affairs program, which will welcome its first cohort of students in 2025.

Prior to joining the Sanford faculty, Asher served in government and politics for more than 15 years, holding senior leadership roles as Chief of Staff to U.S. Representative David Price and as Director of Policy and Research for President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign in North Carolina. He has also worked for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in Beirut, Lebanon, and for two foreign policy think tanks in Washington, DC.

Asher appears regularly in the media as a commentator on state and national politics, the U.S. Congress, and challenges facing American democracy such as gerrymandering and voting rights. He has contributed insight and analysis to The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Newsweek, The Associated Press, The (Raleigh) News & Observer, and many other print publications, and he is a frequent guest on television and radio news and politics programs.

In addition to his role at Duke, Asher is the principal of True North Strategies, a boutique policy and advocacy consulting firm, and he serves on the boards of various local and statewide organizations. He holds an M.P.A. from Princeton University and a B.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill. He lives in Durham with his wife, two sons, and yellow lab mix.

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Heather Hurlburt is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, analyzing, explaining and working to close the gap between the practice of international affairs and the realities of politics in the United States. From 2022-2024, she served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, overseeing strategy and management for the agency charged with carrying out President Biden’s worker-centered American trade policy. Previously, she founded and ran the New Models of Policy Change project at the think tank New America’s Political Reform program. Her work there explored the intersection of international affairs policy and domestic political polarization, on topics from trade and climate to political violence to nuclear security. She also made the project a hub for analysis and convening on diversity, gender and equity in international affairs. 

Earlier in her career, she held senior positions in conflict prevention and international affairs advocacy, including at the International Crisis Group and Human Rights First. She was a speechwriter and member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning staff under Secretaries of State Albright and Christopher, and a Special Assistant and speechwriter to President Bill Clinton. She also worked on Capitol Hill and the US Delegation to the OSCE.  She served from 2022-2025 on the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board. She is widely published, and from 2017-2020 was a regular columnist for New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer. She is a member of the board of the Scoville Peace Fellowship, a co-founder of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, and holds degrees from Brown and George Washington Universities. 

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Jillian Irvin is a seasoned public policy professional with deep expertise in advocacy strategy and emerging technology policy. She currently serves as Head of AI/ML Policy at Amazon, where she leads North American advocacy on generative AI and machine learning. Throughout her career, Jillian has shaped groundbreaking policies at companies like Uber and Airbnb. Known for her strategic thinking and collaborative approach, she has a track record of building coalitions, advising on product innovation, and aligning emerging technologies with public interest priorities. She holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

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Sarah Komisarow is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics in the Sanford School of Public Policy, a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for Child & Family Policy, and a Faculty Scholar at the Duke University Population Research Institute. She is an applied microeconomist with research interests in the economics of education and K-12 education policy. She graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in Public Policy Studies in 2008 and from the University of Chicago with a M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics in 2012 and 2016, respectively. 

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Pope “Mac” McCorkle has served as an issues consultant to political candidates, state governments, and various organizations for the last two decades. Since starting McCorkle Policy Consulting in 1994, he has worked for state and federal candidates in North Carolina as well as 28 other states.

McCorkle has published a number of articles on politics and public policy in academic journals and such magazines as Columbia Journalism Review, Commonweal, and Society. He graduated from Princeton magna cum laude in history (1977) and Duke Law School with honors (1984), clerked on United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (1984-85), and practiced law for a number of years in Raleigh with the firm founded by former Duke President Terry Sanford.

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Philip M. Napoli is the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy, Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy, and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research for the Sanford School.  He also serves as a Docent at the University of Helsinki.

Professor Napoli's research focuses on media institutions and media regulation and policy.  He has provided formal and informal expert testimony on these topics to government bodies such as the U.S. Senate, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Congressional Research Service. 

Professor Napoli is the author of four books: Foundations of Communications Policy: Principles and Process in the Regulation of Electronic Media (Hampton Press, 2001); Audience Economics: Media Institutions and the Audience Marketplace (Columbia University Press, 2003) (winner of the Robert Picard Award for the Best Book in Media Management and Economics from the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication); Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences (Columbia University Press, 2011), and Social Media and the Public Interest: Media Regulation in the Disinformation Age (Columbia University, 2019)  He is also the editor of Media Diversity and Localism: Meaning and Metrics (Routledge, 2007) and co-editor with Minna Aslama of Communications Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere (Fordham University Press, 2011).  Professor Napoli has also published over 50 articles in legal, public policy, journalism, and communication journals; as well as over 30 invited book chapters in edited collections. 

Professor Napoli's research has received awards from the National Business and Economics Society, the Broadcast Education Association, the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association, and has been cited in a number of government proceedings and reports.  His research has been funded by organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the Center for American Progress.  His current project, funded by the Democracy Fund, is the News Measures Research Project, which focuses on developing new approaches to assessing the health of local journalism ecosystems, in an effort to identify the community characteristics that impact the health of local journalism.

Professor Napoli is a firm believer in engaged scholarship, and has engaged in research consultations and collaborations with a wide range of organizations. He has been interviewed in media outlets such as the NBC Nightly News, the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Politico, and National Public Radio.

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Michael is a partner in Brunswick’s Washington, DC office and heads the firm’s higher education sector.  He has more than three decades as a chief public affairs officer, counselor, and strategist for some of the world’s leading research universities, academic medical centers, and media organizations.

An expert in communications strategy, executive positioning, media relations, issues and crisis management, stakeholder engagement, government relations and policy advocacy, Michael advises corporate and nonprofit boards, CEOs, and high-profile leaders on critical issues in higher education, research, health care and sports, among other areas.

Michael joined Brunswick in 2022 after 14 years as vice president for public affairs and government relations, chief communications officer, and spokesperson at Duke University, where he also co-chaired the university’s comprehensive COVID response efforts, helped lead the creation of a new university in China and steered Duke’s communications and advocacy initiatives in Asia, Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.  He previously served for more than a decade as vice chancellor for public affairs at Vanderbilt University. 

Earlier, Michael was senior vice president for policy and public affairs at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in Washington, D.C. and held news reporting and executive leadership roles at the Voice of America and U.S. Information Agency.   

A founder and former chair of Futurity.org, a digital network of more than 70 prominent U.S. and international universities and research centers, Michael is a visiting professor of the practice of public policy at Duke and serves on the boards of WUNC-North Carolina Public Radio, PBS-NC, the Seminar, and the Institute for Public Relations.

Michael graduated from Duke and received a master’s degree in public policy from Stony Brook University. 

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Caryl is the Chief Impact Officer at LionTree, an independent investment and merchant bank with deep roots in the media, technology, communications, consumer, and creative industries. The former Executive Director of the Walton Family Foundation (2020–2023), she previously served for 14 years as President and CEO of UNICEF USA, and, before that, as Senior Associate National Director and Chief Operating Officer at the Anti-Defamation League; the founding director of its A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute; and the Dean of Students at Polytechnic University.

Caryl was invited to present at the White House’s inaugural summit on The United State of Women and was named one of “25 Women Changing the World in 2017” by People Magazine. She serves on the boards of directors of The Container Store and the We Are Family Foundation, in addition to being a member of the Citizens & Scholars and Chime for Change Advisory Boards. The recipient of five honorary doctoral degrees, Caryl earned a bachelor’s degree in studio art and a master’s degree in college student personnel administration and completed her Ph.D. coursework in the same field.

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Debbie Witchey began her tenure as the President and CEO of the Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness (ABHW) in 2024. ABHW member companies provide coverage to 200 million people in both the public and private sectors to treat mental health, substance use disorders, and other behaviors that impact health and wellness. 

Previously, Debbie served for more than 20 years as the executive vice president & chief operating officer of the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), an alliance of leading health industry CEOs representing all sectors of health care. As HLC’s chief government affairs officer, she led multiple coalitions that successfully advocated for the passage of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the CARES Act, and other health care legislation. She also built an award-winning community health program for a hospital system in Charleston, SC, and served as deputy assistant secretary and assistant secretary for management (acting) at the US Treasury Department in both a Republican and Democrat administration.

Debbie has a master’s in health administration from the Medical University of South Carolina and a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Duke University. She serves on the board of a MUSC advisory board and on the board of a women’s service organization in McLean, VA. She is also a member of the Women Business Leaders of the US Health Care Industry Foundation and the URAC Health Standards Committee. In addition, she fosters dogs for Lab Rescue.