Faculty

Laura Burton headshot

LAURA BURTON

Advises undergraduate and graduate students

Educational Background:
Ph.D. – Social Science of Sport, Sport Management, University of Connecticut
M.S. – Physical Education, Athletic Training Concentration, Illinois State University
B.S. – Biology, Fairfield University

Areas of Expertise: Gender Issues in Sport, Leadership in Sport Organizations

Currently Teaching:
EDLR 3310 – Introduction to Sport Management
EDLR 3345 – Financial Management in the Sport Industry
EDLR 5300 – Management of Sport Services
EDLR 6310 – Organizational Behavior in Sport

Dr. Laura Burton joined the Neag School of Education in 2004.  Her research interests include understanding leadership in organizations (particularly sport organizations) and exploring development, access and success in leadership. In her work, Laura focuses on issues of gender in leadership contexts and specifically how stereotypes and discrimination impact women in sport leadership.

Learn more about Dr. Burton: video profile and faculty bio.

Chen Chen headshot

CHEN CHEN

Advises undergraduate and graduate students

Educational Background:
Ph.D.Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation, University of Alberta
MAInternational Journalism and Communication, Renmin University of China
BAJournalism, Renmin University of China

Areas of Expertise:
Sport Management
Qualitative Methodologies
Sport, Settler Colonialism and Decolonization
Race and Asian Diaspora in Sport
Environmental Justice

Currently Teaching:
EDLR 3335 Sport Law

Currently an Assistant Professor of Sport Management at the Neag School of Education, Chen describes himself as a grateful visitor from China to the land known as Connecticut (originated from the Algonquin word Quinnehtukqut that means ‘beside the long tidal river’). Chen takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the intersection of sport with colonialism as well as social, racial, and environmental justice. He is particularly interested in how non-dominant epistemologies can mobilize sport, education, and movement spaces to be more just and equitable, facilitating more meaningful community-building towards decolonization and collective liberation. His research manuscripts have been featured in the Journal of Sport Management, Event Management, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, and Health, Leisure/Loisir, European Journal for Sport and Society, The International Journal of the History of Sport, and Cities. Chen is a leader, organizer, and staunch advocate for students and scholars of underrepresented backgrounds. He is the founding organizer of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) caucus at the annual North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) conference. Chen is currently a member of the board of advisors at the Sporting Justice Collective and a full member of the Sport Ecology Group. Most recently, Chen co-edited an open-access, bilingual educational booklet titled ‘How to be a Chinese Ally’, the first resource of its kind for the overseas Chinese community to reflect upon its collective complicity and responsibility on the settler-occupied Indigenous land.

Danielle DeRosa headshotDANIELLE DEROSA

Advises undergraduate students

Educational Background:
M.S. – Sport Management, University of Connecticut
B.A. – Communication Sciences, University of Connecticut

Areas of Expertise: Community Engagement, Sport Based Youth Development, Partnership Development, Student Development

Currently Teaching:
EDLR 3090 – Directed Observation
EDLR 3091 – Internship in Sport Management
EDLR 3550 – Career Development in Sport Management
EDLR 5105 – Structured Group Dialogue in Student Affairs

Danielle DeRosa is a Clinical Instructor in the Sport Management Program.  In this role she oversees the instruction of the experiential learning components of the Sport Management undergraduate program. This work includes employer and alumni outreach and opportunities to foster partnerships that ensure high quality learning experiences for Sport Management Program students. 

Danielle also serves as an Assistant Director for Husky Sport, a campus-community partnership. Through this partnership, Husky Sport facilitates the opportunity for UConn staff and students to engage in a collaborative relationship with community and campus partners to develop, deliver, and evaluate youth development programs that are aimed at enhancing exposure, knowledge, and opportunity to engage in physical activity, healthy nutrition, and academic achievement, as part of positive lifestyles and opportunities.

Prior to these roles, Danielle has worked with campus partners to develop and sustain procedures and culture to support students’ experience.  This work is evidenced in Danielle’s involvement with the Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) program at UConn, as well as her work in the Global Training and Development Institute (GTDI), an office of UConn Global Affairs. This work allowed Danielle to engage with college students and young professionals both at the University of Connecticut, and from around the world. Danielle oversaw collaborations with international institutions including Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong), The University for Peace (Costa Rica), and The University of the Western Cape (South Africa).  

Previously, Danielle worked with the Office of First Year Programs and Learning Communities and the Counseling Program for Intercollegiate Athletes, in these roles Danielle provided structured academic support to students as they navigated the transition to the University of Connecticut. 

Danielle's faculty bio.

Justin Evanovich

JUSTIN EVANOVICH

Advises undergraduate and graduate students

Educational Background:
Ph.D. – Sport Management, The University of Connecticut
M.A. – Sport Management, The University of Connecticut

B.A. – Sociology, The University of Connecticut

Areas of Expertise: Sport Management, Critical Social Theory, Sport Based Youth Development, Service Learning

Currently Teaching: 

Dr. Justin Evanovich currently serves as an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership within the Neag School of Education and as the Managing Director of Husky Sport. Husky Sport provides UConn staff and students a unique and intentional structure for collaboration with community and campus partners to plan, deliver, and evaluate youth development programs aimed at enhancing exposure, knowledge, and access to sport and physical activity, healthy nutrition, and academic achievement, as part of positive lifestyles and opportunities.

Justin teaches courses associated with sport, community, education, critical social theory, and service learning. Research has focused on individual level impacts of sport-based development programs with youth and the reciprocal impact of involvement with college student participants.

Learn more about Dr. Evanovich, by visiting his faculty bio.

Doug Glanville headshot

DOUG GLANVILLE

Educational Background: B.S.E. in Systems Science & Engineering, University of Pennsylvania

Areas of Expertise: Retired Major League Baseball, Baseball Analysis, Multi-Media Journalism, Social issues in Sport, Sports Activism, Policy and the Media, Gender and Race in Sport, Community Engagement through Sport, Teaching lessons through Sport

Currently Teaching:
Developing an online Sport, Race, and the Media Course
EDLR 3300W – Sport in Society

Doug Glanville brings a distinct perspective to his teaching on the subject of sports, activism, policy, and the media. He is uniquely capable of offering insight about baseball and how the sport translates to everyday life. Raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, Glanville graduated from the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the first African American Ivy League graduate to play Major League Baseball. After retiring from a nine-year career in the MLB, Glanville began sharing his experience and knowledge through his writing, speaking, and sports commentary. He balances his broadcasting career at NBC Sports Chicago and ESPN with his goals as a teacher and advisor. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View. His work appears in The Athletic, The New York Times, and NBC Sports Chicago, as well as other publications. He also co-hosts the baseball podcast, Starkville, where he and co-host Jayson Stark share baseball stories and trivia as they challenge their audience to rethink conventional wisdom.

This fall, Glanville will be advising students and developing an online course on sport, race, and the media modeled after the courses he has taught at UPenn and Yale. Additionally, he will teach the undergraduate Sport in Society course in the spring.

Doug's faculty bio.

Risa Isard

RISA ISARD

Advises undergraduate and graduate students

Educational Background: 

Ph.D. Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst

B.A. Social Change at the Intersection of Culture, Gender, and Sport, Duke University

Areas of Expertise: Stigma in the workplace; Equity in sport organizations; Intersectional diversity among sport stakeholders; Women’s sport

Currently Teaching:

EDLR 3310 Management of Sport Organizations

EDLR 3340 Introduction to Sport Marketing

Dr. Risa Isard is a sport industry veteran. As a scholar, she uses quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how stigma influences the experiences of organizational stakeholders. Isard is most interested in exploring how this manifests in women’s sport, given the unique economic, historic, and socio-cultural factors that influence associated organizations. She is driven to produce work that can advance equity for girls and women, LGBTQ+ folks, and people of color, as well as others marginalized in society and sport. Her research has been featured at the international festival SXSW as well as in the New York Times, ESPN, Ebony, CNN, NBC Sports, Vice and elsewhere, including on the popular podcast Takeline. As a thought leader and public scholar, Isard has penned pieces for Sports Business Journal, NBC, Adweek, Global Sport Matters, Quartz, and espnW among other outlets. Her research and public scholarship have inspired industry changes and spurred related partnerships.

Isard’s varied industry experiences inform her research. She is the founder of RISport, where she consults for sport organizations on issues of equity and inclusion. Previously, as the first full-time employee for the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, she launched and oversaw all community-based initiatives; was founding director of the Project Play Summit, which hosted Michelle Obama and Billie Jean King; developed the first online tool to grow access to sport; related evidence-based findings for sports industry leaders; and consulted for international partners. She has also led key community and corporate initiatives national nonprofit KABOOM!, a minor league baseball team, and Brandi Chastain’s nonprofit ReachUp!, as well as holding previous staff roles with Duke Women’s Basketball and the Phoenix Mercury.

Isard received her Ph.D. from the Isenberg School of Management and Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management at the University of Massachusetts. Her dissertation was titled Women’s Professional Sport and Stigma. She previously graduated cum laude from Duke University with a specialized degree in “Social Change at the Intersection of Culture, Gender, and Sports,” simultaneously receiving honors for her original research on the pre-history and early years of Title IX (1969-1975).

You can follow Isard on Twitter, @RisaLovesSports, or view her faculty webpage.

Jennifer McGarry headshot

JENNIFER MCGARRY

Advises undergraduate and graduate students

Educational Background:
Ph.D. – Sport Management, The Ohio State University
M.A. – English, Morehead State University

B.A. – English, University of Notre Dame

Areas of Expertise: Sport Management, Gender and Race in Sport, Sport Based Youth Development, Qualitative Research, Youth Physical Activity

Currently Teaching: 
EDLR 5315: Sport in Society (fall)

Dr. McGarry has been a part of the Sport Management program at the University of Connecticut since January of 2002 after spending eight years as an athletic administrator and volleyball coach at Kenyon College in Ohio, including two years as athletic director. Dr. McGarry’s research line has focused primarily on barriers and supports for women and those from marginalized ethnic and socio-economic groups. Dr. McGarry is also the program founder and director of Husky Sport. Husky Sport has both a program and a research component. The program provides mentors (UConn students) as planners of sessions at community sites in Hartford, CT that emphasize exposure and access to sport and physical activity, and advocate good nutrition and healthy lifestyles. Research has focused on individual level impacts of such a program on pre-adolescents and the reciprocal impact of involvement on the college student mentors. Additionally, current research is focused on the organizational or socio-cultural level impacts of campus-community partnerships. For more see www.huskysport.uconn.edu

Learn more about Dr. McGarry: video profile and faculty bio.

Dr. Mansour Ndiaye

MANSOUR NDIAYE

Educational Background:
Ph.D. – Sport Management, University of Connecticut
M.A. – Kinesiology, University of Connecticut
B.S. – Management Information Systems, University of Connecticut
B.A.- Economics & French, University of Connecticut

Areas of Expertise: Leadership and Diversity in Sports, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Justice

Currently Teaching:
EDLR 5325 - Sport Law

Dr. Mansour Ndiaye has been teaching for the program as an adjunct faculty since the 2011-2012 academic year. He earned his Ph.D. in Sport Management at UConn and currently serve as an Assistant Dean in the College of Liberal and Sciences.

IN MEMORIAM

 

Eli Wolff headshot

ELI WOLFF

Educator, innovator, advocate, athlete, leader, devoted husband, father, and friend, Elias Abarbanel-Wolff passed away on April 4, 2023. He was an instructor in the Neag School of Education’s Sport Management program and generously gave of his time to students in our program and to students across UConn who had interest in sport and peace. Eli led our Beyond the Field Series and convened several events with the Business and Human Rights Initiative addressing issues of human rights in the Olympics and other transnational sporting events.

Eli co-directed the Power of Sport Lab, a platform to fuel and magnify innovation, inclusion, and social change through sport. He co-founded and acted as advisor for the Royce Fellowship for Sport and Society and the Global Sports Leadership initiative at Brown University. He also co-founded Disability in Sport International, Athletes for Human Rights, and the Olympism Project. In 2000, Eli helped establish the ESPY Award for Best Male and Female Athlete with a Disability and from 2003 to 2008 led a global effort to include provisions addressing sport and recreation within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He inspired many as a member of the United States Paralympic Soccer Team in the 1996 and 2004 Paralympic Games.

Eli worked with colleagues to establish the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) on April 6 of each year, as recognized by the United Nations and an official day on the international calendar and co-organized the annual Athletes and Social Change Forum with the Muhammad Ali Center. More recently, Eli helped to lead national effort for the inclusion of student-athletes with disabilities in high school and college athletic opportunities. In 2019, Eli worked with Major League Baseball to support the change from "Disabled List" to "Injured List" and he also helped support the USOC name change to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

His accolades were many and we feel lucky to have spent so much time working closely with him. You can read more about Eli’s life and legacy and ways to honor him.