Rebecca Pope-Ruark is the director of the Office of Faculty Professional Development. Prior to taking the help of OFPD in 2022, Rebecca served in the Georgia Tech Center for Teaching and Learning as a Faculty Teaching and Learning Specialist, working with faculty to support their classroom goals. Before joining CTL in 2019, Rebecca was a tenured faculty member at Elon University in North Carolina where she led the major in Professional Writing and Rhetoric and multiple design thinking pedagogical initiatives on campus. A trained ethnographer, Rebecca’s original research areas included on rhetorical genre theory, student collaboration and project management, Scrum project management, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. After an experience with burnout, she turned her research to focus on faculty burnout and has published extensively on the topic, including in her 2022 book Unraveling Faculty Burnout: Pathways to Reckoning and Renewal (Johns Hopkins University Press). She frequently speaks and leads workshops around the country on faculty burnout, faculty vitality, and compassionate leadership. 

Rebecca has completed over 150 hours of coaching training and is an ACC-certified coach with the International Coaching Federation. Rebecca coaches around all professional development topics for faculty with a special focus on values and purpose, time and project management, burnout, and workplace well-being. 

Dawn Baunach currently serves as the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty at Georgia Tech, focusing on developing policies and procedures to advance faculty at Tech. Previously, she was the Associate Dean for Faculty/Student Development at Kennesaw State University and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. Her tenure at Kennesaw followed a successful 20-year career at Georgia State University, culminating in leadership roles such as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Director of the Sociology Doctoral Program. Currently a Principle Academic Professional, Dawn started as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia State, earned tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor. She joined KSU as a full Professor of Sociology. She has experienced faculty academic life through the tenure-track, tenured, and non-tenure-track lenses. Dawn’s academic research focused on gender-based labor market inequalities, health inequalities, and sexualities-based inequalities. Her expertise spans quantitative research techniques and macro-structural analyses, with a strong focus on advancing equitable practices in academia. She is committed to fostering inclusive environments and providing strategic support to help faculty members achieve their professional goals. 

In addition to her administrative roles, Dawn is deeply invested in faculty coaching, particularly in areas involving new mid-level and mid-career Institute leaders, such as School Chairs and Associate Deans. Dawn is a Certified Professional Coach from the College of Executive Coaching and an Associate Diversity Coach from Coach Diversity Institute.

Kyla Ross serves as the Assistant Vice Provost for Advocacy and Conflict Resolution at Georgia Tech, where she oversees policy enforcement and addresses grievances from the campus community. She promotes positive lab, work, and class environments through proactive training and conflict resolution. 

Kyla earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering (BME) from Georgia Tech and Emory University, and a B.S. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from Louisiana State University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the NIH-funded Fellowships in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) Program at Emory and joined the faculty at Georgia State University (GSU) in 2008 as the director of the anatomy and physiology program in the Department of Biology. She returned to Georgia Tech in 2016 as the Director of Graduate Training in BME, where she developed and implemented ethics, teaching, and professional development training programs for faculty and graduate students. Kyla has been instrumental in transforming undergraduate and graduate physiology courses at GSU and Georgia Tech and served as President of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS), a professional society dedicated to advancing anatomy and physiology education.  

Kyla's extensive experience in conflict resolution, mediation, and negotiation, along with her expertise in fostering positive classroom and lab cultures and conducting educational research, makes her a valuable executive coach. Kyla specializes in coaching on professional development topics relevant to all faculty ranks, with particular emphasis on helping individuals and organizations enhance their leadership and conflict management skills. Additional areas of focus include interpersonal dynamics, personal and professional well-being, motivation and interests, and creating supportive and positive educational environments.