Meet CHSE’s New Faculty and Staff for Fall 2026

Sarah Ayala
Career Coach/Instructor, Integrative Community Studies

Ayala is a doctoral student and has been a graduate assistant with the ICS program for the past two years. She started her full-time position in March. She brings over 10 years of experience in special education in the classroom and administrative positions, including teaching a special education course for dual-degree undergraduates. Within ICS, Sarah teaches ICS program courses, oversees workforce development and placement, the peer mentors, and coordinates the volunteer initiatives. 

Gabrielle Bennett
Assistant Professor of Sport/Social Work and Positive Youth Development, School of Social Work

Bennett’s background spans kinesiology, higher education, nutrition and community-engaged research. Her work integrates sport and health-focused approaches to advance youth development, personal growth, and well-being across the lifespan. 
 
Bennett’s research examines how sport-based programs promote positive youth development through mentorship, leadership, and life skills among incarcerated youth. Her work explores how community-based sport programs foster self-efficacy and skills that support rehabilitation and future opportunities beyond sport settings. 

Rhonda Bardales
Researcher, Healthy Aging Research Center

A new PhD graduate, she is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over a decade's worth of experience as a medical social worker. She searches and reviews possible grant opportunities, assists with grant proposal writing, disseminates research and assists with Louisiana-Mississippi Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program. 

Lydia Bradford
Assistant Professor, Lutrill & Pearl Payne School of Education

Bradford earned her PhD in Measurement and Quantitative Methods from Michigan State University in 2024 and then was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University working with Beth Tipton at the Statistics for Evidence-based Policy and Practice (StEPP) center. Prior to entering graduate school, she was a high school chemistry and economics teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  

Her research focuses on statistical approaches for moderation, mediation, and longitudinal methods in education and other social science fields. She focuses on hierarchical and structural equation models along with their estimation and applications. Overall, she aims to improve experimental designs, explore machine learning applications for education research, and establish better models and estimation methods for complex research designs. 

Monique Breaux
Instructor, School of Information Studies

Breaux is an educator and information professional with expertise in information literacy, data analysis, and learning management systems. Her experience spans higher education, academic and public libraries, government, and the private sector, where she has leveraged institutional data to support faculty development and improve student outcomes. Her work and research focus on the societal impacts of digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, algorithmic frameworks and evolving patterns of online community engagement. She is especially interested in how digital systems influence race relations, environmental sustainability, information access and participation within contemporary information ecosystems. 

Vanessa Ann Claus
Instructor, School of Leadership & Human Resource Development

Claus is a human resource development scholar-practitioner with extensive experience in higher education, human resource development/human resource management, leadership development, and organizational development. Her professional work emphasizes connecting theory and practice to strengthen individual, team, and organizational success. 
 
Her work and research interests include human resource development, human resource management, organizational change, adult learning, talent development, workforce development, and organizational effectiveness. She is also interested in HR analytics and evidence-based practices. Her greatest passion lies in teaching and seeing students learn, grow, develop and acquire a true passion for their area of interest. 

Laura Clark Hunt
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, School of Information Studies

Clark-Hunt earned her PhD in Library and Information Science from Florida State University and has more than ten years of experience in both public and academic libraries. She also completed postdoctoral work focused on cultural heritage outreach and community engagement. 
 
Her research and professional interests focus on participatory evaluation in programming, accessibility, censorship and privacy. She is particularly interested in how libraries meet the needs of their communities' most vulnerable populations. 

Stephanie Dupre 
Field Education Coordinator Academic Area 4, School of Social Work 

Dupre has served as a field supervisor for the LSU School of Social Work for the last 15 years. She has 25 years of social work experience in mental health, health care and counseling. She has served on the LSU School of Social Work Field Advisory Committee and NASW-LA conference committee. Her position as a Field Education Coordinator involves placing students for their internship and collaborating with agencies to give students in the BSW and MSW programs a fulfilling internship experience. 

Nila Horner
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, School of Information Studies

Horner obtained a dual JD/MLIS from the University of Missouri-Columbia (Mizzou) and is finishing her PhD at Michigan Technological University in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Her dissertation work created the first national dataset of American Girl doll lending programs in U.S. public libraries. She is interested in helping bridge connections between information professionals and the field of law and is excited to explore opportunities to assist with the creation of a dual degree program here at LSU. She is also interested in international librarianship and literacy and has been working at a community center in Ecuador for the past few years to help establish a community library near Quito. 

Beth Hyatt
Instructor, School of Leadership & Human Resource Development

Hyatt comes from a hospitality background encompassing various leadership roles over a 20-year period before pursuing her passion of transitioning to a career in academia. She is passionate about learning, teaching and research. Her current research interests include work-life balance, employee engagement, training and development and leadership. 

Junho Kim
Assistant Professor, School of Kinesiology

Kim earned his PhD in sport management from the University of Florida. His academic background includes research and teaching in sport marketing and sport consumer behavior. His research focuses on sport consumer behavior and strategic communication, particularly how the way sport experiences and marketing messages are framed can shape fans’ perceptions and responses. He is also interested in how psychological and contextual factors influence fans’ attitudes, identities and behavioral intentions, including their responses to social issues in sport. 

Dave Lombardo
Assistant Director of Operations, Leadership Development Institute

Lombardo is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel with 24 years of leadership and operational experience and more than 10 years in adult education and leadership development. His experience spans the military, higher education, and private industry, including serving as an Assistant Professor with U.S. Army University and as Director of Operations for a commercial construction startup. He will support LDI’s operations, business development, client engagement and leadership consulting. His work includes organizational needs assessments, leadership program design and delivery, strategic planning, client partnerships, and helping translate LSU leadership research into practical solutions for organizations across Louisiana. 

Aehong Min
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, School of Information Studies

Min was previously a postdoctoral scholar at UC Irvine. She holds a PhD in informatics from Indiana University Bloomington, along with an MS in information systems and a BS in sociology from Yonsei University in South Korea. Her research explores technologies that support cooperative and collaborative work to improve one’s health and well-being. Applying mixed methods, she studies people and technologies to create better user experiences in health contexts. Her specific focus is on designing technologies that support informal caregivers in cooperating with others to reduce their caregiving burdens. 

Gary Sims
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, School of Kinesiology

Sims holds an MS (2020) and BS (2018) from Southeastern Louisiana University. Just this summer, he graduated with his PhD in motor behavior from LSU. His research focuses on the application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to mitigate the effects of cognitive fatigue on motor and cognitive performance. He is equally committed to delivering effective and engaging classroom and laboratory instruction, developing strong curricula and mentoring the next generation of kinesiology professionals. 

Levi Slack
HR Analyst, Office of Financial Services

Slack serves as a point person for processing personnel matters related to the college.  

James Stampley
Assistant Professor of Research, School of Kinesiology

Stampley previously served in School of Kinesiology at the University of South Carolina, where he was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Exercise Science at the Arnold School of Public Health. He is also a three-time LSU graduate, including a PhD in Kinesiology under Brian Irving. His current research centers on athlete performance. At South Carolina, he built a noninvasive bioenergetics platform that pairs near-infrared spectroscopy with force plate testing to track how muscle oxygenation and mitochondrial capacity respond to exercise and recovery in athletes and tactical personnel. That work grew directly out of his graduate training at LSU, where he specialized in high-resolution respirometry and used both invasive and noninvasive methods to study mitochondrial function and exercise capacity, a foundation he now applies to performance questions. Before earning his PhD, he was the starting fullback on LSU's 2011 SEC Championship football team. 

Toni Swan
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, School of Kinesiology

Swan has over 20 years of experience in higher education, teaching across the disciplines of kinesiology, health and psychology while contributing to academic leadership, faculty development, employee wellness, and online pedagogy. Her work centers on integrating these perspectives to create engaging, evidence-based learning experiences that bridge research and real-world application, encourage reflection, and foster meaningful learning through a deeper understanding of the whole person. Her current interests include stress and well-being, employee wellness, health behavior change, yoga/meditation and contemplative practices, and the design, delivery, and continuous quality improvement of online education. She is especially interested in integrating psychology into health and kinesiology education. 

Seungha Um
Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies

Um earned her PhD in statistics from Florida State University and completed postdoctoral training at the NYU School of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. She is a biomedical researcher with expertise in electronic health record data analysis, causal inference and machine learning. Her research focuses on developing and applying machine learning methods to identify risk factors for complex human diseases and improve disease prediction. She collaborates with research teams at Tulane and LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine.