Dawn Michelle Baunach serves as interim associate provost and executive chief of staff.

Before taking on the interim role of executive chief of staff, Baunach was the associate vice provost for faculty in the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty, where she supported the Vice Provost for Faculty with policy, administration, and special projects for Georgia Tech’s more than 4,000 faculty members.

Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2021, she held the position of interim associate dean for faculty/student development and strategic initiatives at the Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Kennesaw State University. Baunach joined Kennesaw State in 2016 as a tenured professor of Sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. Previously, she spent 20 years as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University, where she served as interim Chair and Director of Graduate Studies. Baunach is an affiliate of the School of History and Sociology at Tech.

In her academic research, she examines societies from a structural standpoint, often in a macro context, using various quantitative techniques. Her research has investigated gender-based labor market inequalities, including wage differentials, labor force participation, occupational segregation, affirmative action, and sexual harassment. Additionally, her work has explored death and illness as arenas of discrimination and inequality. Research projects have also addressed other sex-based inequalities, such as sexual prejudices, HIV/AIDS biases, bullying, and attitudes toward same-sex marriage.