Mary G. McDonald

Mary G. McDonald (Ph.D., University of Iowa) is the Homer C. Rice Chair in Sports and Society In the School of History and Sociology. She is also the Ivan Allen College of LIberal Arts ADVANCE Professor working with the other 5 ADVANCE professors representing faculty on campus while also advising Institute leadership on policy and structure. A past president of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Professor McDonald has published more than 60 refereed articles and book chapters and co-edited Reading Sport: Critical Essays on Power and Representation, a foundational work in the field which earned a Choice award as a top academic title. Dr. McDonald has also co-edited two additional anthologies, Sports, Society, and Technology: Bodies, Practices, and Knowledge Production with Jennifer Sterling (Palgrave, 2020) and Sociocultural Examinations of Sports Concussions with Matt Ventresca (Routledge, 2020). Her research focuses on American culture and narrative construction in sport, particularly as related to gender, race, class, sexuality and commodification. She has edited or co-edited special issues of the Sociology of Sport Journal devoted to "(Post)Identity and Sport" and "Whiteness and Sport" as well as special issues centered on "Doing Sport History in the Digital Present" for the Journal of Sport History and "Innovations in Sports for Development Research" for Third World Thematics. She is a frequent speaker on these and other subjects in professional forums and other venues. Professor McDonald has also served on the Executive Board of the International Sociology of Sport Association as Vice President in charge of communications and received the Service Excellence award from the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, the highest honor conferred by that organization in recognition for long-time service and intellectual leadership within the field. McDonald is also the recipient of the Georgia Institute of Technology's 2025 Class of 1934 Outstanding Service Award. This annual award recognizes faculty who have "benefited the Institute, profession, school/department, or the general public in an exemplary manner." As Homer C. Rice Chair, she directs the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts initiative in Sports, Society, and Technology.