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.  In it she describes her chronemics research in contexts ranging from healthcare to children’s advocacy centers to professional football and more.  She is a Public Voices Fellow and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Health Communication in the Moody College of Communication and Dell Medical School. 

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.