Professor of Practice, Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate; Director of Baker Program in Real Estate

Cody A. Danks Burke is the Director of the Baker Program in Real Estate and Professor of Practice in the Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate. His teaching is focused on real estate transactions, deal structuring, and equity and debt investing in real estate.

In addition to his academic responsibilities, Danks Burke is a managing director of The Agnew Company, where he manages the company's real estate investment portfolio. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Velocis, a Dallas-based real estate private equity firm. Previously, Danks Burke was a senior investment officer at the Cornell University Office of Investments, where he managed endowment investments in real estate and natural resources from 2006 to 2020.

Prior to joining Cornell, Danks Burke was an associate at the Partnership Fund for New York City, a debt and equity fund that makes investments in New York City businesses. He was special assistant to the president of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and served press secretary and later deputy chief of staff for Colorado Congressman David Skaggs and his successor Senator Mark Udall.

He earned a B.A. in international affairs from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an M.B.A. from the Cornell SC Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean, College of Human Ecology and Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy

Rachel Dunifon joined Cornell's faculty in 2001 and is currently dean of the College of Human Ecology. Her research focuses on child and family policy, examining how policies, programs, and family settings influence less-advantaged children's development. She has secured numerous research grants from institutions, including the National Institutes of Health and the USDA. Her book You've Always Been There for Me explores the dynamics of grandparent-raised children, and she leads groundbreaking research on families affected by the opioid epidemic.

Dunifon is co-director of Project 2GEN, which combines research, policy, and practice to address the needs of vulnerable children and their parents together. She and her colleagues were awarded the inaugural William T. Grant Foundation Institutional Challenge Grant for their project titled "Protecting Vulnerable Children and Families in the Crosshairs of the Opioid Epidemic: A Research-Practice Partnership.”

Dunifon received her BA in psychology from Davidson College and her PhD in human development and social policy from Northwestern University. She completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan.

Self-awareness Expert, Author, and Entrepreneur

Ji Gu graduated from Cornell with a BS summa cum laude in 2007. She maintains strong ties to the university as a President Council of Cornell Woman member and was elected a 2024 Asia-Pacific Young Leader.

Ji Gu was the founding dean of Zhen Academy, an institution focusing on helping entrepreneurs improve self-awareness and avoid repetitive mistakes in decision-making. She previously served as co-founder and COO of Laiye Technology (来也), a company that secured $23 million in series-C funding, and was studio head and business director at FunPlus, where she managed international teams developing top-grossing games. She has worked as an analyst for BlackRock and UBS Investment Bank, where she ran analysis for over $16 billion in assets under management and worked on deals worth over $4 billion.

Her first book, Break Out of Your Self-awareness Limits, has been on the Top 10 Best Seller Listing for DJ, DangDang, and featured on Amazon Prime China since its release in 2021. Gu maintains a significant presence on social media with over 2.5 million followers.

After Cornell, Gu earned her MBA from Stanford University. She is the founding program director for the Essential Interpersonal Dynamic Program at the Stanford Center at Peking University. She is an entrepreneur coach at the Tsinghua University MBA program.

Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Government

Peter Loewen leads Cornell's largest and most academically diverse college as the Harold Tanner Dean. Before serving as dean, Loewen was director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He was also the Robert Vipond Distinguished Professor in Democracy in the Department of Political Science; director of the Policy, Elections and Representation Lab (PEARL); associate director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society; a senior fellow at Massey College; and a fellow with the Public Policy Forum, a Canadian think tank and registered charity.

His research focuses on the future of democratic societies and the politics of technological change, particularly in improving political decision-making and addressing technological disruption. Loewen has co-edited four books, most recently Women, Power, and Political Representation (University of Toronto Press, 2021). He has published his journal articles widely, including in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Medicine, Nature Human Behaviour, and the American Political Science Review.

Loewen earned his PhD in political science from the Université de Montréal and his bachelor's degree from Mount Allison University. He has held visiting positions at prestigious institutions, including Princeton University and Stanford University, and has received numerous awards, including multiple Dean's Excellence Awards.

Professor of History and Southeast Asian Studies, Chair of the History Department

Tamara Loos is a Professor and Chair of Cornell’s History Department, and former Director of the Southeast Asia Program. She has written two books and dozens of articles about Thai history. Her current book project, How to be an Anti-Communist, examines the role that Thai and American scholars played in shaping Thai cultural and intellectual history during the Cold War. She also wrote Bones around My Neck: The Life and Exile of a Prince Provocateur and Subject Siam: Family, Law, and Colonial Modernity in Thailand.

Professor and Senior Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Undergraduate Education

Lisa Nishii joined Cornell's faculty after completing her graduate studies, later becoming vice provost for undergraduate education in 2018 and vice provost for enrollment in 2023. She established ILR WIDE in 2022, focusing on Workplace Inclusion and Diversity Education at the ILR School.

Nishii was inspired to pursue a research career when, as an undergraduate student, she discovered research articles that helped her make sense of the often clashing individualistic (American) and collectivistic (Japanese) values underlying her mixed identity and childhood experiences growing up in Tokyo, Japan. Much of her earlier research was on dimensions of cultural differences and their cognitive and behavioral manifestation in applied organizational settings. She is most well known for her pioneering research on climate for inclusion – what it is, how it is shaped by leaders and the consequences for both group processes and individual outcomes.

Nishii earned her PhD and MA in organizational psychology from the University of Maryland at College Park and her BA in economics from Wellesley College. Her academic journey was inspired by her experiences growing up in Tokyo, Japan, leading to research on cultural differences in organizational settings.

Associate Vice President for Alumni Affairs

Michelle Vaeth graduated from Cornell in 1998 with a BS in biological sciences, concentrating in neurobiology and animal behavior. She now serves as associate vice president for Alumni Affairs, maintaining strong connections with Cornell's extensive alumni network.

Following graduation, Vaeth joined Procter & Gamble, where she spent the next 18 years in roles of increasing responsibility across multiple P&G global business units, including leading brand communications, media relations, public relations, and crisis and issues management for P&G’s $5+ billion global health care divisions. A winner of multiple professional awards, Vaeth notably led global effort Protecting Futures: Keeping Girls in School, which received the first-ever Cannes PR Lion at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity and the United Nations Association of the USA’s Global Leadership Award.

Beyond her professional achievements, Vaeth demonstrates strong community leadership as vice president of the 125,000-member Association of Junior Leagues International and serves on the board of the SPCA of Tompkins County. She divides her time between Ithaca and Tully, New York.

Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development

As Cornell's chief fundraiser, Fred Van Sickle oversees alumni engagement worldwide and leads private support initiatives through the "To Do the Greatest Good" campaign. Since joining Cornell in 2016, he has strengthened the university's development and alumni relations programs.

Prior to Cornell, Van Sickle served as executive vice president for Alumni and Development at Columbia University, where he played a pivotal role in planning, executing, and completing the $6.1 billion Columbia Campaign. He was chief development officer at the Institute for Advanced Study and later director of Principal Gifts at Princeton; associate vice president for Development and assistant dean for development for the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan; and vice president for Alumni and Development and secretary of the College at Lake Forest College (his undergraduate alma mater).

Van Sickle holds a Master of Education from Harvard University and a Doctor of Education from the University of Pennsylvania. He serves the local community as president of the board of the Finger Lakes Land Trust and as a board member of the Food Bank of the Southern Tier.

Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Global Development and Vice Provost for International Affairs

As vice provost for international affairs, Wendy Wolford supports the university's international community and focuses on strengthening the university's many global connections and interdisciplinary initiatives. Under her leadership, the university has created the Global Hubs partnerships, Global Grand Challenges, and increased support for Scholars Under Threat.

Wolford is an expert on land distribution, use, and governance around the world. She has worked for many years in Brazil and, more recently, in Ecuador and Mozambique, collaborating with local researchers, community members, policymakers, and multilateral organizations. Wolford has published several books, including This Land is Ours Now, about the Brazilian social movement, the Rural Landless Workers (Duke University Press, 2010), and a co-edited volume, The Social Lives of Land (Cornell University Press, 2024). Her most recent book, The Elusive Plantation, is currently under review.

Wolford was a fellow in the Yale Agrarian Studies Program in 2004–05 and a Fulbright Research Scholar in 2016–17 and has received support from the National Science Foundation, Mellon, Ford, the Social Science Research Council, and more.

Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Alan Zehnder received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He stayed on as a postdoctoral research fellow for one year, and joined the Cornell faculty in 1988. In 1993 he was the faculty member in residence in Hamburg, Germany, for the Cornell Engineering Abroad program. He was a visiting Professor at Caltech in the 1996-97 academic year. In summer of 1998 he served as a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Carderock, Maryland. In 2004 he was a Guest Professor at the Vienna University of Technology. IN 2016 he was a visiting Scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center.  He currently serves as Sr. Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and has also served as Associate Dean for Diversity and Faculty Development in the College of Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society for Experimental Mechanics.  His teaching and research interests are in mechanics of materials and fracture mechanics.

Professor and David J. Nolan Dean of the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management

Jinhua Zhao joined Cornell as dean of the Dyson School after serving as a professor of economics and director of the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University.

Zhao’s research focuses on environmental and resource economics, economics, particularly climate change, renewable energies, and water resources. His research projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the EPA.

Zhao was a co-editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management and served on the editorial councils of JEEM and the Review of Development Economics and is on the editorial committees of Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Annual Review of Resource Economics, and Frontier of Economics in China. He served on the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board as well as the Air, Climate, and Energy Committee of EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors.

His publications have appeared in, among others, the Economic Journal, International Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Public Economics, JEEM, and American Journal of Agricultural Economics.