Faculty Profiles for the Ph.D. Program

Dr. Sabine O’Hara is a teacher, mentor, researcher and administrator well known for her work in community based sustainable development, urban resilience, and urban agriculture. She currently leads an innovative PhD program in Urban Leadership and Entrepreneurship at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) in Washington, DC. Prior to her current appointment, she served as the founding Dean of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) at UDC and led the University’s efforts to build a cutting-edge model for urban agriculture and urban sustainability that integrates research in the agricultural, environmental, social, and health sciences with the practical aspirations of students and residents to embark on successful careers in the new green economy.

Dr. O’Hara’s work has focused consistently on the quality of life and economic opportunity of local communities through multi-dimensional intellectual, social, and physical capacity development. She was the 10th President of Roanoke College in Virginia; provost of Green Mountain College in Vermont; faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York; and executive director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), which administers the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Program.

Dr. O’Hara holds Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Agricultural Economics and Environmental Economics from the University of Göttingen, Germany. She is a member of the Working Group on Institutional Analysis of Socio-Ecological Systems at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany; past President of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE); serves on the advisory boards of King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, the National Latino Farmers Association in Washington, DC; and several editorial boards of  academic journals.

For a full CV of Dr. O’Hara and her publications and accomplishments, click here.

Dr. Yolandra Plummer is a Professor of Management in the School of Business and Public Administration (SBPA) a UDC.  She also serves as the Chair of the University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).  Prior to joining the University in 2013, Dr. Plummer managed the nonemergency medical transportation program for 5,000+ District of Columbia’s Medicaid-eligible residents.

Yolandra received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Howard University in 2005.  She received her Master of Public Administration from the University of the District of Columbia in 1993.  Yolandra earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Howard University in 1985.  Her research is focused on multidimensions of digital literacy of individuals receiving Temporary for Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits.  She has served as the Principal Investigator of the Paving Access Trails to Higher Security (PATHS) grant for 10 years.  The initiative focuses on work readiness training for District of Columbia residents receiving TANF benefits.  Dr. Plummer has 15+ years’ experience in public management.

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Dwane Jones is currently the Dean of UDC-CAUSES. He is a leader with over 20 years of combined experience in leadership, green infrastructure programs, research, urban design, environmental planning and program management with government, academia, nonprofit and community-based agencies, and international governments and universities. Dr. Jones uses design thinking to problem-solve, innovate, prototype, execute, and research human-centered challenges while using sustainability as a lens to address these problems. He was Founder of the Low Impact Development Certification Program at North Carolina State University (which became a national model for certification programs in green infrastructure), has led national and international innovation programs, and most recently led the launch of a PhD Program in Urban Leadership + Entrepreneurship, aimed at developing the next generation of innovative thinkers to address issues that are primarily urban. Dr. Jones is also an Executive Leadership Coach who specializes in launching + scaling start-ups. He has degrees in Urban Planning, Environmental Planning, Urban Design, and Evidence-Based Coaching.

Dorothy Agger-Gupta, PhD, is Interim Dean of Academic Affairs and doctoral professor at Fielding Graduate University. She has expertise in several areas including gendered identities; biases in AI technologies; and intersectional research in leadership, organizations, entrepreneurship, and STEM professions. Her most recent publications and presentations focus on ethics and biases in AI technologies, including ChatGPT, and social networks.

Dr. Agger-Gupta’s current research focuses on embedded biases in western histories of art and leadership and ways these biases marginalize and disenfranchise women and members of other underrepresented groups. She is active in the International Leadership Association and serves as co-chair of the Arts and Leadership special interest community.

Dr. Agger-Gupta and her husband Niels are dual citizens of the US and Canada. They reside on the traditional lands of the Xwsepsum (Esquimalt) and Lkwungen (Songhees) families, in Victoria, BC Canada. Art, travel, and family are vital to her, complementing her commitment to social justice, DEIB, and progressive graduate education.

Dr. Kitty Epstein earned a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received the Outstanding Dissertation Award and served as a visiting professor. She has prepared hundreds of urban teachers and has supervised the dissertation studies of several dozen doctoral candidates at Fielding Graduate University.

Kitty co-hosts a radio show with her son on KPFA radio (www.kpfa.org) on which she explores educational and political issues ranging from effective teaching strategies to the impact of billionaire developers on the displacement of African-American schools.  Her second book, A Different View of Urban Schools: Civil Rights, Critical Race Theory, and Unexplored Realities, challenges myths and assumptions about urban school districts.

Kitty served as Education Director for Mayor Ronald Dellums and led an innovation in democracy called the Task Force Process, which consisted of 41 groups comprised of 800 people whose recommendations helped to shape the administration of Mayor Ron Dellums. In 2012, she was named one of the “2012 Powerful Women of the Bay Area” and received community leadership awards from the John George Democratic Club and PUEBLO. Her book, Organizing to Change a City, derives from her experiences as an organizer and provides steps and guidance for urban change.

While teaching English at the Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, a unique public alternative school which was an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, Dr. Epstein received the Marcus Foster Educator of the Year Award. Dr. Epstein has been invited to speak in Nicaragua, China, Jordan, Ethiopia, and South Africa, about the creation of effective education programs.

Her most recent scholarship includes a book on the most successful student strike in U.S. history, the strike which won ethnic studies.  Recent articles have used collaborative action research to oppose discrimination against French Muslim women and update her earlier research on winning and losing in the struggle for public education.

Dr. Christopher Anglim is a professor, librarian, archivist, researcher, mentor,  lawyer, historian, and farm owner who writes in various areas such as law, archives, librarianship, and information science. He is dedicated to a variety of issues, including the right to read and research, free access to information, improving information literacy, enhancing research, sustainability, sustainable agriculture, sustainable development, emergency management, global security, peace studies, equal justice, equal representation, good governance, equal opportunity, and promoting and strengthening democracy and democratic institutions in the United States and worldwide. He has also written numerous books and articles on issues in these subjects.

Dr. Anglim has served as an Archivist and Reference Librarian at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) since 2006. In addition, he teaches both the Ph.D. writing class for CAUSES and a legal writing course for the David A. Clarke School of Law at UDC.

As a longtime research and writing instructor, Dr. Anglim believes that excellence in writing is essential to professional and academic success. He works closely with his students to help ensure that they research and write to their greatest potential.

Prior to working at UDC, Professor Anglim was the collection development and government documents librarian at Prairie View A&M University (Texas), archivist and reference librarian at the St. Mary’s Law Library, a reference librarian at the University St. Thomas (Texas), and a special collections and reference librarian at South Texas of Law (Texas). Among his professional recognitions, Professor Anglim received the AALL  Joseph Andrews Award for Excellence in Writing in 2005 and the UDC Excellence in Faculty Service Award in 2022.

Professor Anglim holds a JD from Arizona State University, an MLS from the University of Arizona, an

MA in History from Arizona State University, an MS in Homeland Security from UDC, an MBA from UDC, and an MPA from UDC.

Additional faculty: Dr. Maros Ivanic (UDC), Dr. Anthony Perdue (UDC)