Dr. Filipova is the Director of the MPA program in the new School of Public Affairs & Global Engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh effective 8/21/2025. Previously, she served as a Public Administration Department Chair and MPA Coordinator for six years (2015-2021) with significant accomplishments, including the launch of the online MPA program in Spring 2017. Before moving to UWO in 2009, she worked in Western Michigan University’s School of Public Affairs and Administration as an Assistant Professor, teaching graduate and doctoral courses in public administration.

Dr. Filipova’s grant-supported research focuses on leadership, ethical, management, and policy issues affecting health care organizations, administrators, practitioners and patients. Dr. Filipova has published in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Nursing Administration; Journal of Allied Health; Computers, Informatics, Nursing; Public Integrity; Nursing Ethics; Journal of Nursing Administration’s Healthcare Law, Ethics and Regulation; Journal of Healthcare Quality; Journal of Applied Gerontology. 

During her 16-year employment at UWO, Dr. Filipova was awarded the Edward M. Penson Distinguished Teaching Award (2016) and the Edward M. Penson Faculty Award (2014). She was also selected as the 2017-2018 Wisconsin Teaching Scholar and the 2012-2013 Wisconsin Teaching Fellow by the UW System.

When she is not working she enjoys vegetable gardening, floriculture and arboriculture, travelling in the United States and abroad, reading books and newspapers, tai chi exercises, tending to her cat and spending time with her family.

Michael R. Ford is a Professor of Public Administration and the Director of the Whitburn Center for Governance and Policy Research. His research focuses on public and private board governance, education policy and finance, and the relationship between the public and nonprofit sectors. Dr. Ford brings significant practitioner experience in state and local policy to the classroom, striving to connect academic Public Administration to real world practice. He holds numerous appointments to community boards, including the Oshkosh Common Council and Plan Commission. When not working he enjoys fishing, playing music, writing, and spending time with his family.

In some semesters, Dr. Nollenberger is invited to teach the following MPA courses as an instructional academic staff:

• MPA 721 Public Policy Analysis
• MPA 734 Applied Economics
• MPA 752 Public Budgeting
• MPA 726 State and Local Government
• MPA 727 Municipal Management

Dr. Karl Nollenberger joined the faculty of UW Oshkosh in 2008. He received his Ph.D. in Public Administration from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 2008. During his 9-year academic career in UW Oshkosh, he had taught many core and elective MPA classes. He had engaged students in conducting community policy projects and supervised more than 100 capstone/field project papers. Dr. Nollenberger initiated the start of the International City/County Management Student Chapter in the MPA program. Dr. Nollenberger has published in journals, such as Journal of Public Affairs Education, Urban Affairs Review, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management, and Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He brought to the MPA program over 30 years of local government experience, mostly in the Midwest. As former president of the International City/Council Managers Association, he is part of an extensive professional network and earned a level of recognition that had brought invitations to deliver presentations and provide expertise to many local governments in Wisconsin and other states. His local government experience has been a great asset to the MPA program and benefited many students and fellow faculty.

Dr. Son is a professor of sociology.

In some semesters, Dr. Son is invited to teach the core class MPA 732 Analytic Methods.

Dr. Son received her Master of Arts in Women’s Studies from Rutgers University at New Brunswick in 1998, her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Oregon in 2007, and joined the department in 2007. Dr. Son is a medical sociologist and she has published articles that examine issues such as health service utilization and immigrant incorporation, postpartum care, health disparities, transnationalism and technology, gerontology, and sexual health curriculum. Her current research interests are good ageing and end-of-life decision making processes along the lines of class, race and gender categories. She is trained in both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

She is originally from Seoul, Korea but has lived in the U.S. for more than the half of her life time. Wisconsin is the state she spent her first couple of years in the U.S. as an international student in the 90s, and thus has been her second home in her heart.

Dr. Lusvardi is an associated professor of political science. In some semesters, Dr. Lusvardi is invited to teach the core class, MPA 721 Public Policy Analysis.

Dr. Lusvardi’s research interests are in public policy, American politics, and gender and politics. Her current research projects examine how gender justice issues reach legislative agenda setting. 

Dr. Thomas is an associated professor of political science. In some semesters, Dr. Thomas is invited to teach PUB ADM 307/507 Administrative Law, which is an elective MPA course.

Dr. Thomas researches sexuality law and politics. His most recent work interrogates the extent to which sexual and gender expression are protected under the First Amendment as expressive speech.

Dr. Huettl  graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Research Interests

Ojibwe/Anishinaabe sovereignty and treaty rights, Indigenous Studies, North American West, Indigenous sustainability and resilience, digital humanities

Publications

• “Retracing the Oregon Trail,” with William J. Bauer and Katrina Phillips, California History (2022) 99(2)

• “Nation to Nation: Understanding Treaties and Sovereignty” in Kristofer Ray and Brady DeSanti, eds., Understanding and Teaching Native American History (Madison: Unveristy of Wisconsin Press, 2022)

• “Treaty Stories: Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Treaty Rights and the Struggle for Sovereignty, Ethnohistory (Spring 2021) 68(2): 215-236.  (winner of the Robert F.  Heizer Article Award, American Society of Ethnohistory, 2022)

• “Re/creating the Past: Anishinaabe History in the Novels of Louise Erdrich.” Critical Insights: Louise Erdrich. Edited by P. Jane Hafen (Ipswitch: EBSCO Publishing, October 2012).

Tyson Novinska, M.A. currently serves as a Deputy Chief at the City of West Allis Fire Department. He earned a Master of Arts degree in Educational Leadership from Marion College and obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Education from UW Oshkosh.