Ann Baker

Ann C. Baker is professor emerita of the Schar School of Policy and Government and a senior scholar of the Center for Well-Being at George Mason University. She served as the senior associate dean of the School of Public Policy (SPP) from 2010-13. Earlier, she served for five years as the program director of the Master's in Organization Development and Knowledge Management program, and she taught at Mason from 1996-2015. Baker has more than 30 years of experience serving as an external and internal consultant to public, private, and nonprofit organizations.

Baker's research expertise and consulting experience include creating systemic organizational change, cross-cultural communication and collaboration, conflict and change as catalytic sources of learning and innovation, and group dynamics. She is the author of numerous publications related to her research and consulting interests including her books, Catalytic Conversations: Organizational Communication and Innovation (2010) and Conversational Learning: An Experiential Approach to Knowledge Creation (2002).

In 2006, Baker received the Don Lavoie Teaching Award from SPP and in 2008 was a finalist for the Teaching Excellence Award at Mason. Prior to joining Mason, she was a Kellogg Fellow, having received a three-year leadership development fellowship from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for International Leaders of the Future.

Areas of Research

• Creating Systemic Organizational Change
• Cross-Cultural Communication
• Group and Organization Communication
• Organizational Differences as Catalysts for Knowledge Creation

View CV