Ann Austin
University Distinguished Professor
Ann E. Austin is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University (MSU), where she has served on the faculty in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education in the College of Education since 1991. She has recently served as Interim Vice Provost and Associate Vice President for Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs (2022-2023), and previously served as Interim Dean of the College of Education (2021-2022), Associate Dean for Research (2016-2021), and Assistant Provost for Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs (2016-2021). She has been a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) (2015-2016), a U.S. Fulbright Fellow (1998, South Africa), and President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), and she is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She was one of the co-founders of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), a collaboration of more than 40 universities, which, with funding from the NSF, has prepared several thousand doctoral students over the past twenty years to be excellent teachers as well as strong researchers. Dr. Austin has recently concluded seven years of service as Co-Chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ Roundtable on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education. Her international work in higher education has taken her to more than fifteen countries.
Her research concerns organizational change in higher education; academic work, careers, and professional development; creating more inclusive and equitable academic workplaces; teaching and learning issues in undergraduate education; doctoral education; and STEM education. Her current and recent National Science Foundation-funded projects have focused on teaching preparation for future STEM faculty, improving teaching evaluation, gender equity in academe, and organization change networks. Dr. Austin has published extensively, including, among others, the following books: Transforming College Teaching Evaluation: A Framework for Advancing Instructional Excellence (forthcoming 2025, with N. D. Finkelstein, A Follmer Greenhoot, D. Ward, and G. C. Weaver); Building Gender Equity in the Academy: Institutional Strategies for Change (2020, with S. Laursen); Faculty Development in the Age of Evidence: Current Practices, Future Imperatives (2016, with A. Beach, M. D. Sorcinelli, and J. Rivard); and Rethinking Faculty Work: Higher Education’s Strategic Imperative (2007, with J. Gappa and A. Trice).
