SCiLL welcomes new faculty

The UNC School of Civic Life and Leadership will welcome seven new full-time faculty members and two visiting research professors for the 2025-26 school year.

“SCiLL’s faculty search last year yielded an outstanding group of scholars with special strengths in literature, American political development, comparative and Islamic political thought, and early modern and medical history. This year we are excited to also host as visiting research professors a leading scholar of African American and democratic political thought and a pioneer in civil discourse and artificial intelligence,” said Jed Atkins, SCiLL’s director and dean and the Taylor Grandy Distinguished Professor on the Philosophy of Living.

“I am thankful for the thorough work done by our faculty to ensure a successful search and recruitment process and look forward to welcoming these outstanding scholars to campus,” Atkins added.

SCiLL provides students with a grounding in the foundations and current state of the American political experience and democracy. The school launched in fall 2023, began offering a minor in civic life and leadership a year later and welcomed 11 new faculty last academic year.

“This is an exciting moment for SCiLL,” said interim provost James W. Dean Jr. “These new faculty bring a shared commitment to civic engagement, thoughtful dialogue and the study of democracy. Their work will enrich our academic community and help prepare students to lead with clarity and purpose in a complex world.”

Here are the incoming full-time faculty members:

Erica Charters, professor, was a professor of history at the University of Oxford specializing in war, health and empire. Her award-winning book, “Disease, War and the Imperial State,” examines the welfare of British armed forces during the Seven Years’ War.

Flynn Cratty, assistant professor, serves as professor of the practice and director of operations at SCiLL. He is the author of seven publications, chiefly on Reformation-era religious and political culture. His dissertation on the history of prayer in early modern France and Britain won the Theron Rockwell prize.

Daniel DiSalvo, professor, was a professor of political science at the City College of New York, where he also served as department chair. He is the author of two books — “Engines of Change: Party Factions in American Politics, 1868-2010” (2012) and “Government Against Itself: Union Power and its Consequences.”

Ejuerleigh Jones, teaching assistant professor, is completing a dissertation on changing concepts of confession in 19th-century American literature. Jones served as a teaching fellow for Duke’s How to Think in an Age of Polarization course.

Benjamin Musachio, assistant professor, specializes in Russian literature in the 20th century, and his teaching competencies range across the canon of Russian and Slavic-language classics. He is the author of 10 publications.

Rasoul Namazi, associate professor, was an assistant professor of political theory at Duke Kunshan University in China. His research explores the intersections of political philosophy and Islamic thought, with a particular focus on figures such as Leo Strauss, Machiavelli and Hegel.

Kathryn Wagner, assistant professor, was a visiting scholar in the Kenan Institute for Ethics and director of academic programming in the Center for Christianity & Scholarship at Duke University. Wagner’s research interests include medieval English literature and religious writing.

The 2025-26 visiting research professors are:

Melvin Rogers is the Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he serves as the co-director of the Democracy Project. Rogers is a leading scholar of American political thought, democratic theory and African American political thought.

Simon Cullen was a teaching assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and is an expert in civil discourse and AI. His work combines philosophy, cognitive science and educational technology to improve reasoning and communication across moral and political divides.

Read more about the new SCiLL faculty.