Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program

Big Ten Academic Alliance

Academic Leadership Program

Each year, up to six Nebraska faculty members are selected as ALP Fellows and participate in the Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program. The Academic Leadership Program is one of the most successful leadership initiatives of the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Established in 1989, the program develops the academic leadership and managerial skills of nominated faculty who have demonstrated exceptional ability and academic promise. The program addresses the challenges of academic administration at major research universities while helping faculty members prepare to meet those challenges.

ALP Fellows from across the Big Ten attend a virtual welcome session and three in-person seminars at different Big Ten campuses and the Big Ten Conference Center. Nebraska’s ALP Fellows also participate in on-campus meetings throughout the academic year with members of our university's academic leadership.

Learn more about the Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program.

Past ALP Fellows


2024-25 ALP Fellows

Richard Bischoff

Richard Bischoff

Professor, Associate Vice Chancellor in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Richard Bischoff is the Associate Vice Chancellor in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, a position he has held since 2018. He works closely with the Vice Chancellor to deploy faculty expertise to accomplish the mission of IANR. He supports and nurtures faculty and administrator professional and capacity development by overseeing recruitment and hiring, onboarding, professional development programming (including coaching to success), performance evaluation (including promotion and tenure), collaboration, and retention. He is responsible for assisting academic unit leaders with strategic visioning activities leading to achievement of the Institute’s mission. From 2011 to 2018, he was Chair of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies. Trained as a mental health counselor and human sciences researcher, his research expertise is in global and rural mental health and the mental health influences on rural community prosperity. He has been the Director of UNL’s Marriage and Family Therapy program, which was the first in the U.S. to develop a training program focused on the use of telemental health and collaborative health care to meet the mental health needs of rural residents. Prior to working at UNL, he was a faculty member at the University of San Diego. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Weber State College, a master’s degree from Auburn University, and a doctorate from Purdue University.


Anne Duncan

Anne Duncan

Associate Professor of Classics, Department Chair of Classics and Religious Studies

Anne Duncan is an Associate Professor of Classics and Department Chair of Classics and Religious Studies. Her research focuses on ancient Greek and Roman drama and performance history. She has held a Junior Fellowship at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. and a Solmsen Fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin. At UNL, she teaches a wide range of courses, from ancient Greek and Latin language courses to courses in translation on ancient drama, spectacle and entertainment in ancient Rome, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, and classics and popular culture. She holds a bachelor of arts in English literature from Swarthmore College, and a master of arts and a doctorate in classical studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Duncan has been selected as the Nebraska ALP-Mellon Fellow for 2024-25 and will participate in an enhanced two-year experience, made possible by a Mellon Foundation grant to the BTAA, with additional academic leadership programming in the humanities and a mentored project within the EVC Office.


Jennifer Nelson

Jennifer Nelson

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research, Research Integrity Officer

Jennifer Mize Nelson is Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research in the Office of Research and Innovation. In this role, she is liaison to UNL’s research centers and core facilities, and co-leads a campus task force developing a comprehensive research data strategy for the university. She is also UNL’s Research Integrity Officer with responsibility for several compliance areas including the protection of human research participants, care and ethical treatment of animals used in research, and conflicts of interest in research. Nelson played a significant leadership role in orchestrating the university's COVID-19 pandemic response, including launching on-campus testing and contact tracing. Prior to joining R&I, she served as the Director of Administration in the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior. Nelson is research faculty in psychology, and since joining the university in 2009, has been a co-investigator in an NIH-funded laboratory studying children’s cognitive development and health outcomes. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of California Los Angeles, her doctorate in clinical child psychology from the University of Kansas, and completed a predoctoral clinical internship at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Children’s Health Council.


Rajib Saha

Rajib Saha

McNeel Associate Professor, Graduate Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Rajib Saha is Richard L. and Carol S. McNeel Associate Professor and Graduate Chair and in Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering. Prior to UNL, he worked as a post-doctoral research associate in the Himadri Pakrasi Lab in the biology department at Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout his multidisciplinary graduate research career, he has developed metabolic network models for photosynthetic organisms and subsequently utilized those for studying their physiology and also for metabolic engineering applications. His recent postdoctoral research includes study of light/dark behavior and development of efficient and tunable gene expression control system of a model cyanobacterial strain. His research interests include reconstruction and analysis of genome-scale and community models, systems-level analysis of ‘omics’ data, development of genetic toolkit and engineering metabolic pathways, and redesign photosynthetic apparatus and carbon fixing mechanism. His lab, the Systems and Synthetic Biology Laboratory, conducts research aimed at discovery and redesign of non-model microbes, plants and microbial consortia. Saha holds a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and a master's degree and doctorate in chemical engineering from Pennsylvania State University.


Jennifer Wood

Jennifer Wood

Professor of Animal Science, Associate Dean in the Office of Graduate Studies

Jennifer Wood is a Professor of Animal Science and Associate Dean in the Office of Graduate Studies. Her research focuses on the effects of obesity and oxidative stress on mammalian egg quality with implications for improving fertility in women and domestic livestock. Her work has been published in 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Wood is well recognized in her field with 25 invited talks, and she is the current President of the Society for the Study of Reproduction. Wood has spent a significant amount of time promoting the success of the next generation of scientists. She serves on FASEB committees to strengthen basic research in academia and support the next generation of basic scientists. At UNL, she serves on the steering committee of the Women Supporting Women group which advocates for women faculty members. In her role as Associate Dean, Wood serves the academic and basic needs of all graduate students at UNL. This includes overseeing programming in teaching support, grant and writing support, summer research for undergraduates, onboarding new students for success, and best practices for graduate students and graduate faculty advisors. Wood earned her bachelor's degree in microbiology at Indiana University and her doctorate in molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Illinois. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in the Center for Research in Reproduction and Women’s Health.