Our Team

George P. Hanley

Founder 

George Hanley has extensive experience founding and building successful companies in the financial and commercial real estate industries. George is a graduate of University of Dayton, serves on the Board of Trustees for University of Dayton, Dean’s Committee for University of Miami and is President of the George P. Hanley Foundation.

Gregory Koger 

Director of the Hanley Democracy Center 

gkoger@miami.edu

Gregory Koger is a professor of political science at the University of Miami. Koger specializes in legislative politics and political parties. After earning his B.A. At Willamette University, Koger worked as a legislative assistant in the U.S. House for over two years, where he served as a liaison to the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Koger earned his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2002. He has been with the University of Miami’s political science department since 2007.

Emily Danzinger
Graduating 2025
Center Student Director
Major: Political Science, International Studies,& Public Advocacy

Kate Crandall
Graduating 2026
Center Student Director
Major: Political Science Science & Economics

Samantha Weissman
Graduating 2026
Director - Civic Synergy
Major: Political Science & Sociology

Dylan Long
Graduating 2027
Associate Director - Civic Synergy
Major: Political Science & Economics

Mona Gelfgatt
Graduating 2028
Communications Specialist
Major: Music Industry & Public Relations

Mike Abrams - Mike served in the Florida House of Representatives for 12 years representing the North Miami Beach/Aventura area. During his tenure in the legislature, he served as chair of the House Health Care Committee and House Health & Rehabilitative Services Subcommittee on Appropriations where he acquired immense knowledge of the appropriations process. As one of few people to serve four straight years as chair of the House Finance & Taxation Committee, Mike has vast experience related to the effect of state tax policy on private companies, healthcare, transportation and public education. After retiring from the legislature, Mike returned to Miami and began a career in the private sector, advocating for a number of Florida clients before federal, state, county, and city government officials. Prior to joining Ballard Partners, Mike co-chaired the Government Affairs & Public Policy Practice at a large national law firm and investment banker. His client base includes businesses, not-for-profits, municipalities, counties and healthcare entities, specifically as it relates to appropriations at the state and federal levels. Currently he is a member of the University of Miami Board of Trustees and frequent op-ed contributor to the Miami Herald.

Al Cardenas - Al Cardenas is chair of the advisory board of NTG Consultants and former chair of the Florida Republican Party. He has been named one of Washington, D.C.’s top lobbyists by The Hill. He served on President Ronald Reagan’s transition team and as chair of President Reagan’s Commission on Small and Minority Business Affairs. He formerly served as chair of the American Conservative Union. He previously served two terms as chair of the Republican Party of Florida and three consecutive terms as its vice-chair. He has served on the boards of Miami-Dade College and Florida A&M University. 

Sue Cobb - Sue M. Cobb is president of the Cobb Family Foundation and principal of Cobb Partners, LLC. She is also a former ambassador to Jamaica, secretary of state of Florida, CEO of the Florida Lottery, partner at Greenberg Traurig, and multiyear member and three-time chair of the Miami Federal Reserve. She is also a trustee of CSIS and the Council of American Ambassadors, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the Advisory Council of the Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training. She is married to Ambassador Charles E. Cobb, former U.S. undersecretary of commerce and ambassador to Iceland. Ms. Cobb has been an officer and director of several public, private, and charitable boards and has received numerous awards including national honors from both Jamaica and Iceland. The U.S. Department of State awards the Sue M. Cobb Award annually to the individual selected in worldwide competition as the most outstanding noncareer U.S. ambassador. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of Miami School of Law, and a skilled alpine skier and high altitude climber, she has scaled mountains worldwide and authored The Edge of Everest (Stackpole Books, 1989), a chronicle of her travels across China and Tibet and her climb of Mt. Everest.

George Hanley - George Hanley has extensive experience founding and building successful companies in the financial and commercial real estate industries. George is a graduate of University of Dayton, serves on the Board of Trustees for University of Dayton, Dean’s Committee for University of Miami and is President of the George P. Hanley Foundation.

Patrick Murphy - Patrick Erin Murphy is an American businessman, accountant, and politician. He served as the U.S. representative from Florida's 18th congressional district from 2013 to 2017.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - Former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) served for almost three decades as a member of Congress representing diverse areas in South Florida. Rep. Ros-Lehtinen was the Chairwoman emeritus of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In these roles, she led on pressing foreign policy issues, including championing the advancement of freedom and democracy for all, fighting Islamist extremism; supporting free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea; and imposing sanctions on human rights violators in Venezuela. Prior to becoming the Chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen served as Chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia; International Operations and Human Rights; International Economic Policy and Trade; and Africa; and as Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Rep. Ros-Lehtinen also served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and was a member of the CIA Subcommittee and the National Security Agency and Cybersecurity Subcommittee. A strong proponent of education, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen holds multiple education degrees, including an Ed.D. from the University of Miami, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Florida International University. She began her career as a Florida certified teacher, and then founded, and served as the principal of, a private bilingual elementary school.

Charlton Copeland, Professor of Law - Charlton Copeland joined the faculty in 2007. He teaches Civil Procedure I and II, Federal Courts, Administrative Law, and the Regulatory State. In addition, he has served as the Faculty Coordinator of the Florida Supreme Court Internship Program, and the Law School’s Washington, DC Externship Program, where he teaches Federal Policy Making: Legislation, Regulation and Litigation. He is a 2015 recipient of the Richard Hausler Golden Apple Award for the faculty member contributing the most to the student body both academically and through his or her extracurricular activities.

Scott Heerman, Associate Professor of History - Scott Heerman is a scholar of eighteenth and nineteenth century U.S. history. His research focuses on slavery and emancipation in the U.S. and Atlantic World. He also teaches about western expansion and empire in U.S history and legal history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 2013, Professor Heerman earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. Before coming to our department, he was the Patrick Henry Postdoctoral Fellow in the history department at Johns Hopkins University.

Sallie Hughes, Professor of Journalism at The School of Communication - Sallie Hughes (PhD, Latin American Studies, Tulane University) is Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Management and Department Chair of Journalism and Media Management at The School of Communication. She was senior research lead and faculty director at the University of Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas from 2016-2021. She teaches courses in comparative journalism and media studies. She coordinates the Latin American region of the Worlds of Journalism Study, the largest cross-national study of journalists’ working conditions, professional values and occupational epistemologies. She is the author of Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and the Democratization of Mexico and co-author of Making a Life in Multiethnic Miami: Immigration and the Rise of a Global City, as well as numerous peer-reviewed academic publications. Her current research interests include the sustainability of journalism, journalism and human rights, and journalist safety, risk and coping.

Raymond Orr, Elizabeth B. White Chair of Political Science - Before joining Miami, Raymond Orr was the Mae and John Hueston Distinguished Professor in Native American and Indigenous Studies and Associate Professor at Dartmouth College. His prior appointments include serving as the Department Chair and Associate Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and teaching comparative and Indigenous politics at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He received his PhD in Political Science from UC Berkeley and has been a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton's Department of Politics, Yale's Program in Race, Ethnicity and Migration, and the University of Washington's Native Elder Research Center. Raymond Orr is currently a senior fellow in the Atlantic Institute for Social Equity at The University of Melbourne.

Michael Touchton, Associate Professor of Political Science - Dr. Touchton studies the political economy of development and underdevelopment in a comparative setting. His areas of interest include how countries attract investment and promote economic growth, how they reduce poverty and promote human development, and how they redevelop following the departure of major industries. Much of his research occurs in Latin America, but Dr. Touchton has spent considerable time addressing these questions in many other parts of the developing world and the United States. Dr. Touchton's research informs his work in the classroom, and his courses cover a wide variety of topics in comparative politics, and international relations from introductory to graduate levels.