Senate Leadership
Purpose and Functions
The University Academic Council (UAC) shall serve as the executive board of the University Senate.
Membership Guidelines
The UAC shall consist of the presidents, presidents-elect, and immediate past presidents of the campuses.
The assembly membership of each campus shall elect a new president-elect each spring semester in accordance with procedures established in Bylaw III of the University Senate. The president-elect will take office June 1. Read the history of the University Academic Council here.
2025–2026 Leadership
Elisa Kawam
Senate President and Chair of the UAC
Contact
Biography
Elisa Kawam has her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in social work. Her main area of work has concentrated on children, youth, and families in the intersectionality of poverty, violence, substance use and abuse, and child welfare. She has a passion for preventing, understanding, and then for empowering the healing of trauma and PTSD.
Kawam grew up in New York and New Jersey and was greatly impacted by the immense amounts of poverty, strife, systemic struggle, and lack of realized social capital that she saw. When she was very young, her parents instilled in her the values of compassion, social justice and serving others. Those concepts have fueled both her personally and professionally ever since. Kawam believes in the goodness of people, the strength of families, and the power of communities in cocreating a just society. A grassroots social worker, Kawam is called to public service, servant leadership and education.
In her free time, Kawam enjoys reading, writing, music, hiking, yoga, and spending time with family (furry and human). She is a trauma informed yoga instructor, vegan, and an avid lover of books and reggae music.
Tamara Rounds
President, Downtown Phoenix campus
President-elect | Ian Derk
Past president | Johannah Uriri-Glover
Contact
Biography
Tamara Rounds, MSW, LCSW, is a distinguished Clinical Professor within the Watt’s College of Public Programs, School of Social Work. Recognized for her exceptional contributions to education, she received the 2020- 2021 ASU Watt’s Public Service Educator award for her excellence in teaching. As a first-generation student herself, she offers a unique perspective, particularly in advocating for mental health initiatives tailored at ASU students. She brings a unique perspective to her role, especially in championing mental health initiatives tailored to ASU students. Her areas of expertise include curriculum design, development of career track faculty policies, community partnerships, and leadership in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives. Tamara is deeply committed to advancing scholarship and pedagogy in these areas.
Alongside a colleague, she oversees 56 sections each semester of Stress Management courses (SWU 250, 349, and SWG 579), reaching over 6,000 undergraduates annually across Poly, Tempe, Phoenix, and West campuses through in-person, hybrid, and online formats. She also serves as the Program Coordinator for the graduate certificate Integrative Health: Stress Management, Mindfulness, and Resilience. In 2016 to 2020 Tamara dedicated four years to the Faculty Senate, where her leadership was acknowledged, culminating in a one-year term as the downtown Senate President. Currently, from 2024 to 2026, she continues her work in Faculty Senate, serving another term as the downtown Senate President.
Chad Kennedy
President, Polytechnic campus
President-elect | David Burel
Past president | Taylor Weiss
Contact
Biography
Chad Kennedy’s experience spans entrepreneurship, engineering research, product development and management, and advanced technology application in industry. His expertise stems from spending more than 27 years working in the field of engineering. His early career began working in various engineering design, testing and astronaut training capacities at NASA Johnson Space Center. After, Kennedy joined the start-up VI Technology Inc., an automation and testing systems firm, and helped establish the Silicon Valley office and operations. VI Technology was later acquired by Aeroflex, Inc. Kennedy was the co-founder and CEO of the startup company, Restorative Biosciences Inc., an early-stage company that focused on developing anti-fouling, anti-inflammatory coatings and therapeutics for ophthalmic applications.
Kennedy is currently an associate teaching professor and graduate chair in the technology entrepreneurship and management program in the Polytechnic School, one of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. In addition, Kennedy is one of the founding faculty of the MS in innovation and venture development program, in partnership with engineering, business and industrial design schools. Formerly, he was the national chair and professor of biomedical engineering technology at DeVry University. Kennedy sat on the national Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation educational committee and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Academic Council. Kennedy holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in addition to master’s and doctorate degrees in bioengineering from Arizona State University.
Elena Rocchi
President, Tempe campus
President-elect | Sarah Bolmarcich
Past president | Pauline Davies
Contact
Biography
Elena Rocchi is Co-Director of the MSD program in Space Architecture & Extreme Environments and a Clinical Professor at ASU’s Design School. She is also a faculty affiliate of ASU’s Interplanetary Initiative and The Biomimicry Center. Her accolades include the 2020 AIA Arizona Educator of the Year Award.
Previously, Rocchi was a fellow at Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. From 1995 to 2008, she served as Senior Architect and Office Director at Miralles Tagliabue EMBT Architects in Barcelona. Since 2000, she has taught architecture and design in Barcelona at ESARQ-UIC (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya). She also served as Director of the Master in Interior Design for Commercial Spaces at IED Barcelona. Rocchi’s research spans from architecture of the body to field systems, exploring the interface between humans and nature through architecture and interior architecture. Her interests also include the history of Roman architecture, origin-based drawing (both analog and digital), urban scenography, the image of Rome, and the post-production of architectural ideas.
Contact
Biography
Mary H. Burleson earned her doctorate in psychology (the behavioral neuroscience program) from Arizona State University in 1994. Her postdoctoral training was at The Ohio State University College of Medicine in the Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity and the Department of Psychology. In 1997, she joined ASU, where she directs the BioSocial Psychology Laboratory in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, combining the ASU missions of research and teaching.
Burleson’s research focuses on biological aspects of socioemotional processes, such as interpersonal regulation (how people use touch to regulate their own and each other’s emotions and stress) and the multidirectional influences among stress, social connection, and women’s reproductive health, sexuality, and well-being. Recent publications include daily diary studies of physical affection, sexual behavior, sleep quality, and next-day mood among women during the menopause transition (in Archives of Sexual Behavior and in Menopause) and of how cohabiting couples’ touch during and surrounding sleep relates to their mood and interaction quality on the following day (in Affective Science); a report on ethnocultural differences in attitudes and experiences of social touch between European Americans and Mexican Americans (in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships); and a theoretical paper on how social touch contributes to interoceptive processes and in turn to both socioemotional and physiological allostasis (in Social Neuroscience).
Burleson teaches physiological psychology, biological bases of behavior, social neuroscience, the biology of human sexuality, brain damage and recovery of function, and psychopharmacology.
Philip VanderMeer
Secretary, Academic Assembly and University Senate
Contact
Biography
Philip VanderMeer began teaching at ASU in 1985 and retired in May 2016 as a professor of history. He taught American political and urban history, concentrating on the 20th century. His books include Burton Barr: Political Leadership and the Transformation of Arizona Politics and Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix, 1860 to 2009. His current research is a study of “Immigration, Religion, and the Development of Community in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1870 to 1930.”
As a faculty member, he served as president of the University Senate (2008–2009); member of the University Academic Council (2007–2011); senate member (1998–1990 and 2004–2008); parliamentarian (2006–2008 and 2010–2011). He also served on the ACD Manual Revision Committee and the Grievance Policy Task Force. VanderMeer’s other university activities include serving as member (1997–2000 and 2007–2008) and chair (2002–2002) of the General Studies Council as well as a member of the Curriculum and Academic Program Committee (2001–2005 and 2007–2011).
He served on The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee (1994–1995, chair 1995–1997 and 2002–2007) and on its Academic Standards Committee (1990–1993). Among his various departmental service activities, the more recent include serving as head of the history faculty in 2011–2013 and as director of public history in 2012–2013.
VanderMeer has been a member of the Emeritus College since 2016, served on the Emeritus Council from 2018 to 2022 and has been the Emeritus College representative to the University Senate since 2017. He is currently the Senate secretary and a member of the University Academic Council.