University Leadership

Dr. Erika Latty is the President of the Enterprise [PoE] and Chief Academic Officer [CAO] at Unity Environmental University. Dr. Latty provides first-among-equals leadership and oversight for four of Unity Environmental University’s Functional Areas: Academics; Student Success; Facilities; and Information Technology and the Centralized Units under their purview. She also oversees the decentralized policies. She is responsible for ensuring compliance, quality control, academic standards and assessment, and consistent management of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Dr. Erika Latty, Professor of Botany, is a forest ecologist who specializes in the effects of introduced tree disease on forest structure. She holds a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University and a B.A. in Biology from Harvard University.
Prior to assuming her current position in June of 2021, Erika served as Unity Environmental University’s Chief Learning Officer [CLO] [August 2019 – June 2021]. She has also served as the University’s CAO since April of 2017. She has held additional leadership roles at Unity Environmental University including Dean of the School of Environmental Citizenship [July of 2016 – April of 2017], Center Director and faculty leader.
Before coming to Unity Environmental University in 2007, Dr. Latty was Chair of the Environmental Studies Program and Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA. Prior to that she was a Research Associate at University Wisconsin-Madison.

Gabrielle Funk is the Chief of People, Perseverance, & Planet at Unity Environmental University. She works with the senior leadership team to establish and implement human resources strategy and policies as well as advising the president on matters involving employee recruitment and employment, compensation, benefits, training and development, employee relations, job performance, personnel records, and workplace health, safety and wellness.
Gabrielle graduated from Bryant University with B.A. in Psychology and Business, and quickly built her HR career in both the global fortune 500 and nonprofits. Gabrielle joined Unity Environmental University in 2020, and prior to that was working as the Director of Human Resources for Heading Home, Inc., a nonprofit that houses homeless families and individuals. Gabrielle also volunteers as an HR consultant to Girls Rock Campaign Boston, a small nonprofit that works to empower youth through music.

Dr. Jennifer Cartier is the Executive Vice President of Educational Solutions at Unity Environmental University. Prior to joining the faculty at Unity, Dr. Cartier was the Director of Teacher Education and a Science Education faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh where she was recognized with the Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Carnegie Science Foundation Excellence Award for University/Post-Secondary Education. Dr. Cartier has published research exploring the relationships between science teachers’ professional identities, instructional materials, school contexts, and the enacted curriculum. Her work has been published in a variety of professional journals, including School Science and Mathematics, Science and Children, and Science and Education. Dr. Cartier co-authored the chapter Developing Understanding Through Model-Based Inquiry in the seminal NRC publication How Students Learn (2005) and Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Task-Based Discussions in Science (2013).
Throughout her career, she has been awarded more than $7M in grants to support science education research and curriculum development. Since joining the faculty at Unity in 2014, Dr. Cartier has enjoyed teaching a variety of courses related to pedagogy, learning, the socio-politics of education, and sustainability. Dr. Cartier is thankful that her career has brought her back to her native state of Maine after more than two decades of work in academia in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and enjoys spending time with her extended family and searching for sea glass on beach walks whenever she can.
Dr. Cartier received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her B.A. in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Williams College.

Denise Young is the Executive Vice President of Educational Outcomes at Unity Environmental University. She is a Maine native with a Master’s in Education with a dual focus in Instructional Technology and Educational Leadership and B.S. in Business Administration, Management Concentration from the University of Maine. She is mastery level certified by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) in prior learning assessment.
Denise has been instrumental in transforming the landscape of online enrollment management with a specific focus on student persistence at the national level. Her leadership has resulted in the recruitment and retention of Unity Environmental University’s largest student population. With over 20 years of experience in education at all levels, she specializes in finding pragmatic data driven solutions to complex problems and coaching teams to their maximum potential in a results oriented culture.

Dr. Karleen Swett is the Vice President of Enrollment Management for In-Person Education at Unity Environmental University. She has spent her career as an academic administrator focused on enrollment management, financial aid, recruitment, retention and marketing. She is passionate about helping students reach their goals through education and has a proven track record of using technology to improve student enrollment and retention.
Prior to joining Unity Environmental University, Karleen served as the Vice President of Enrollment Management at Somerset Community College in Somerset, Kentucky. She has also served as the Executive Director of Enrollment Management, Director of Financial Aid and Veterans Affairs at Spring Hill College in Mobile Alabama.
She holds an Ed.D. in Executive Leadership from Wingate University, and she earned both her M.B.A., Marketing and B. A. in Business Administration Management from St. Leo University.