Faculty

Faculty


Courses will be taught by Teachers College, Columbia University Social-Organizational Psychology Faculty as well as faculty from other schools within Columbia University and from other academic and consulting organizations. All faculty are committed to offering executives ways of thinking about and approaching change leadership that are advanced, data-based and positively related to individual and organizational capacity-building and success.

Program Directorate


This is a picture of Debra A. Noumair.

Debra A. Noumair is a Professor of Psychology and Education and Founder and Director of the Executive MA Program in Change Leadership (XMA), Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Professor Noumair is currently engaged in teaching, consulting, coaching, and research.

As an educator, Professor Noumair is committed to intentionally designing and co-creating innovative opportunities for learning for experienced professionals. She won the Teachers College, Columbia University first instituted Teaching Award in 2020 and was a second-time winner of the award in 2022.

A group relations scholar and practitioner, Professor Noumair is a Fellow of the A. K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems. The focus of her work is on applying systems psychodynamics to organizational change with individuals, teams, and organizations. She is animated by creating opportunities to develop the capacity to think systemically, link overt behavior to covert dynamics, and discuss the un-discussable as she views these competencies as central to surviving and thriving in social systems.

Through her research, Professor Noumair developed X-Ray Vision, a tool that provides a framework for developing a comprehensive understanding of group and organizational life. Professor Noumair is co-author of Organization Development: A Process of Learning & Changing, 3rd Edition, co-editor of the annual book series, Research in Organization Change and Development, and co-editor of Group Dynamics, Organizational Irrationality, and Social Complexity: Group Relations Reader 3. She serves on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, on the International Advisory Board of the OPUS International Journal, Organisational, and Social Dynamics, and on the Academic Board of Mind Gym, an international behavioral science firm that uses psychology-based solutions to transform individual, team, and organizational performance.

Professor Noumair partners with organizations in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors to advance under-represented groups by examining systemic barriers, teaching group dynamics, and conducting assessment-anchored executive coaching with senior leaders.  She is core faculty for Leading Women Executives, a CEO-sponsored leadership development program for women.  She also directs executive education programs in global organizations in the Asia-Pacific region, in Europe, and in the United States and she regularly teaches in the Consulting & Coaching for Change Program (Oxford Said Business School & HEC-Paris).  For several years, she taught in the Leadership & Educational Change Program (at Teachers College-National Institute of Education (Singapore).

Professor Noumair received her bachelor’s degree from Boston University and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University.

portrait of Amy Deiner

Amy Deiner is an Academic Planning Fellow at Teachers College.  In that role, she supports various strategic initiatives at the College including digital learning, continuing professional studies, and the Executive Masters Degree in Change Leadership. 

Amy comes to Teachers College with over ten years of experience at Columbia Business School Executive Education.  She served as the liaison for customized programs for organizations including ExxonMobil, Bank of America, Ericsson, and the Center for Curatorial Leadership.  As the Senior Director of Program Management, she oversaw a team of 12 staff responsible for over six hundred days of executive programming annually serving both the corporate and not-for-profit sectors.  Amy was also instrumental in the rollout of Columbia Business School’s online programming, a quickly growing segment of the Business School’s portfolio. 

Amy has a B.A. in anthropology from NYU, an M.S. in strategic communications from The School of Continuing Education at Columbia University, an M.A. in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Teachers College and is working toward an Ed.M and eventually an Ed.D also in Higher and Postsecondary Education.

Ramya Kumar

Ramya Kumar is an accomplished talent management, organizational development, and change management professional specializing in talent management, organizational diagnosis, organizational development and learning, change management, and leadership development.  

 

Over the last 12 years, Ramya has worked on various talent management assignments across diverse industries in leadership roles with global and country-wide responsibilities. She has played key roles as a strategic business partner and consultant in global and Fortune 500 organizations such as CGI and ACS, and has a demonstrated track record of successfully designing and implementing several strategic organizational development and large-scale change management initiatives in the areas of learning and leadership development, employee engagement, performance and career management, total rewards, culture, and post-acquisition integration. She was the core team member of the ‘Cultural Assessment and Transformation’ initiative at CGI that was recognized as an HR Best Practice at the NHRD Conference in 2011. She was also the co-researcher of the study on ‘Generational Diversity and its Impact on Key People Processes’ that was presented at the NASSCOM D&I Summit in 2010 & 2011. Her recent work on ‘Integrating Culture into Coaching Practice’ was showcased by the Eastern Academy of Management and Penn Language Center in 2015.

 

Ramya has a Master's in Organizational Dynamics from the Univ. of Pennsylvania, a post-graduate diploma in Human Resources Management, and holds SHRM-SCP, Prosci, and Behavioral Profiling (DiSC) certifications. She is also a member of the American Psychological Association, Society for Human Resource Management, and Association of Change Management Professionals. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Social-Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests include organizational development and change, leadership, and group processes. She is particularly excited to research leading and managing organizational change in an increasingly complex world with rapidly changing workplaces and diverse, global workgroups.

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