2024 New Commissioners Welcomed!

The Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA), under the leadership of the 2024-2025 Chair, Dr. Angela Eikenberry, is honored to welcome four new Commissioners serving terms from 2024-2027. Learn more about the members recently joining the Commission below:

Susan Appe, Commissioner, 2024-2027

Susan Appe is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY, where she also serves as MPA Program Director. Her research focuses on government–nonprofit relations taking into account the political, regulatory, and funding environments for civil society. She also studies the relationship between civil society, foreign aid, and development and private philanthropy in development aid. She is currently working on research projects related to collective remittances and philanthropy as well as the roles of public administration and nonprofit organizations/NGOs in mass atrocity prevention. She has extensive experience in qualitative and interpretive research methods, comparative analysis, and in-depth fieldwork across North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. For her research and teaching, Appe has been awarded five Fulbright Scholar Awards in Ecuador, Colombia, India, Mexico and Egypt. Appe is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of VOLUNTAS (2020-2024) and the current Section Editor of Comparative Policy Instruction, Syllabi and Pedagogy for the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis (JCPA).

Appe’s service to NASPAA includes conducting accreditation site visits since 2017, serving on the Non-profit Management Education (NME) Section Executive Council (2014-2016), and co-chairing the NME Section’s Task Force on Nonprofit Competencies (2014-2015). She is also an active member with NASPAA’s partner in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Inter-American Network for Public Administration Education.

Trenton Davis, Commissioner, 2024-2027

Trenton J. Davis, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Public and Nonprofit Studies at Georgia Southern University. He has also served as the MPA program director since January 2009. His research and teaching interests center around organizational change, small group behavior, public service motivation, compensation practices, innovation management, and leadership within public organizations. Some of his work on these topics has appeared in the Review of Public Personnel Administration, Journal of Public Affairs Education, State and Local Government Review, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, The Social Science Journal, and Human Resource Management: Problems and Prospects (5th and 6th editions). Recently, he was recognized as a 2024-25 Dean of Students Faculty Fellow for his ongoing commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive campus environment.

Jayce Farmer, Commissioner, 2024-2027

Dr. Jayce Farmer is an associate professor in the School of Public Policy and Leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where he also serves as the graduate programs director for both the MPA and PhD in Public Affairs programs. His research primarily explores local public finance, urban sustainability, county government administration, state and local relations, and interlocal collaboration.

Before joining the UNLV faculty, Dr. Farmer enjoyed a successful career in municipal government fiscal administration in Florida, where he worked for nearly nine years. This practical experience deepened his interest in local government decision-making, a curiosity that now drives his research and teaching.

Dr. Farmer's work has been extensively published in various peer-reviewed academic journals, including The American Review of Public Administration, Urban Affairs Review, State and Local Government Review, and Publius: The Journal of Federalism.

Yuna Souza dos Reis da Fontoura, Commissioner, 2024-2027

As Head of Accreditation and International Affairs at FGV EBAPE, Prof. Yuna Fontoura has been working with international accreditation since 2018. Prof. Yuna teaches Government and International Institutions, Civil Society and Global Governance, Corporate Sustainability, Qualitative Methodology and General Management. She received her PhD in Business Administration (FGV EBAPE and University of Essex, UK) and Master's in Public Administration (FGV EBAPE). Her research interests are: Civil Society Organizations and Social Movements, particularly in Agriculture and Food Security; Corporate Sustainability in Latin America; and Discourse Analysis. In 2022, Prof. Fontoura’s paper was regarded as one of the best-accepted papers in the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. She has also published in journals as Organization; Gender, Work & Organization (GWO); Journal of Rural Studies (JRS); The Critical Perspectives on International Business (CPOIB) and The Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development.