Kimberly A. Carlson
Kimberly Carlson (Ph.D.) serves as the Director of Volunteer Advisory Board Strategy in Virginia Tech’s Advancement division. In this role, she works with Advancement leadership and key volunteers who serve on university-level advisory boards to align, integrate, and collaborate to better meet college, unit, and university goals and priorities. Additionally, Kimberly co-founded and now serves as CEO of Tractus Strategic Partners, a consulting company with a focus on helping managers develop their Management Tradecraft™. Kimberly continues to collaborate with her academic department at Virginia Tech as an Associate Professor of Practice in Management within the Pamplin College of Business, serving on Ph.D. committees, finalizing current research, and teaching when needed.
Previously, Dr. Carlson served as Director of Programs for the Principal Partnerships Office in Virginia Tech Advancement; as director of the Business Leadership Center and the Business Diversity Center, both housed in the Pamplin College of Business; as adjunct faculty for the Center for Public Administration and Policy and the Political Science Departments at Virginia Tech; and as the Assistant Director for Presidential Global Scholars (a semester-abroad program) and Fulbright Program Adviser in University Honors at Virginia Tech.
Dr. Carlson’s teaching and research experiences include leadership, organizational and workforce development in national and local organizations, governments, and universities. Particularly, her Ph.D. was focused on public administration and policy, with concentrations in organizational and leadership development. Her dissertation research looked at succession planning processes in university-wide research institutes in public, doctoral universities with very high research activity.
Holding a B.S. in Psychology and B.A. in Theatre Arts with a minor in Sociology from Virginia Tech and an M.S.W. in Clinical Social Work and a certificate in Arts and Community Practice from Florida State University, Dr. Carlson has held a variety of positions related to community engagement, strategic planning, and arts education. Before returning to Virginia Tech, she worked as a director for community arts and arts education programs at various arts organizations in both Oklahoma City, OK and Pensacola, FL. Since returning to Virginia Tech, she completed three certificates – Nonprofit and Nongovernmental Management, Future Professoriate, and Higher Education Administration – and has worked on the Arts Initiative for Virginia Tech through the Office of the Senior Fellow for Resource Development and with the Long Range Planning effort through the Office of the Senior Fellow for International Advancement.
Until recently, Dr. Carlson served as a member of the faculty design team for the Calhoun Discovery Program, faculty affiliate to the Center for Cooperative Problem Solving as well as the Aerospace Engineering Department, senior fellow for the Honors Residential Commons, faculty affiliate to the Center for Educational Networks and Impacts, advisor to the student organization Pamplin Leadership Development Team (PLDT), which coordinates Pamplin’s Annual Student Leadership Conference and conducts leadership training workshops for student groups across campus. As a member of the inaugural VT Engage Faculty Fellows program from 2017-2019, Dr. Carlson incorporated service-learning in many of the leadership courses and programs that she taught. When opportunities arose, she also led study abroad experiences within Pamplin’s International Programs.
Currently, Dr. Carlson serves as chair of the Lyric Theatre and Council Board of Directors. Additionally, Dr. Carlson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Tractus Strategic Partners, a boutique consulting practice that advises organizations with strategies to align workforce capabilities with strategic needs. TSP helps managers hone their Management Tradecraft skills.
In her free time, Dr. Carlson enjoys outdoor activities like hiking and riding her bike, cooking and (more importantly) eating, and many indoor hobbies including reading and sewing. She lives in Christiansburg with her husband, Eric, who is serving as a research scientist for the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Virginia Tech.