About

Dawna I. Ballard (Ph.D., University of California at Santa Barbara) is associate professor of organizational communication and technology in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. An expert in chronemics—i.e., the study of time as it is bound to human communication—she researches what drives our pace of life and its impact on the communication practices and long-term vitality of organizations, communities, and individuals.

Dr. Ballard is currently completing a book, Time by Design (under contract at MIT Press), about how effective organizations routinely communicate slow to go fast.  Her research and commentary are regularly featured in mainstream news outlets, such as The New York Times, Fortune, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, Forbes, Inc., Reader’s Digest, Men’s Health Magazine, Quartz, HuffPost, and NPR as well as venues such as SXSW and Creative Mornings. Her expertise is sought after by global think tanks such as the Aspen Institute and The European House Ambrosetti where she invites audiences to go beyond industrial-era approaches to time and consider evidence-based approaches to support productivity and well-being in contemporary work.

A member of the National Communication Association (past Chair, Group Communication Division), International Communication Association, and the International Society for the Study of Time (past Council Member), she co-directs the internship program and teaches courses on communication in groups, teams and communities, scale development, and chronemics. In addition to teaching thousands of students across her twenty-plus year career, she has proudly advised and served on the committees of over 60 doctoral and master’s students.  She was recently awarded the 2022-23 William David Blunk Memorial Professorship, to recognize her “outstanding record in teaching, and extraordinary contribution to student advising, mentorship, and guidance.”

Dr. Ballard is committed to engaged scholarship that makes a positive difference for individuals, organizations, and communities and has won multiple awards for her research.  Related to those commitments, she is a Public Voices Fellow and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Health Communication–a collaboration between the Moody College of Communication and Dell Medical School.  She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas.