Leslie Sharp
Dean of Libraries

Leslie Sharp

404-385-7590
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Biosketch

Since July of 2020, Dr. Leslie N. Sharp has served Dean of Libraries at Georgia Tech. She was reappointed for a second five-year term in 2025. Previously, she served as interim chief executive officer for the Library and associate vice provost for Graduate Education and Faculty Development. Sharp is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Architecture. As Dean of Libraries, she provides strategic and administrative oversight for the Library, Archives, Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons (CULC), and their services (including the Library Service Center with Emory University. 

As associate vice provost, Sharp managed operations across the organization, including communications, human resources, finance, and general administration. She also oversaw an expanding organizational mission and operations, including growing personnel and services that offered enhanced graduate student support, professional development for graduate students and postdocs, postdoctoral services, and more intentional faculty development. 

Sharp teaches historic preservation in the College of Design, where she formerly served as the assistant dean of Academic Affairs and Outreach. Sharp holds a Ph.D. in history and sociology of technology and science and a master's in history of technology from Tech.


Research Interests

Sharp is interested in all things historic preservation and architecture, especially how emerging technologies impact the built environment. Her historic preservation interests are typically focused on the Southeastern United States with her expertise being the identification and documentation of historic places for the purposes of preservation, recognition, compliance, or financial incentives. Sharp also writes and speaks about leadership, digital transformation, and importance of investing in people and processes to build a positive and engaging culture.


Teaching Interests

Sharp has taught historic preservation, architectural history, and history classes. She currently teaches Introduction to Historic Preservation to both undergraduate and graduate students across campus. This course helps students develop an understanding of the history, philosophy, organization, current legislation, policies, and practices of historic preservation in the United States. The course is designed to give students an overview of the field and its relationship with other built environment professions, such as architecture, construction, planning, engineering, and landscape architecture and the critical role historic preservation plays in creating sustainable communities. The assignments and projects give students real-life experience in historic preservation.


Education

Doctor of Philosophy in the History and Sociology of Technology and Science, Doctoral Minor in Architectural History -May 2004 
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 
Dissertation: “Women Shaping Shelter: Technology, Consumption, and the Twentieth-Century House" 

Master of Science in History of Technology - December 2001 
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 

Master of Arts in History with Emphasis in Historic Preservation - May 1993 
Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee 
Thesis: “Down South to Dixie: The Development of the Dixie Highway in Tennessee” 

Bachelor of Arts in History - June 1989, Cum Laude 
University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia


Selected Recent Scholarly Output

  1. Co-authored with Jason Wright. “Glad You Asked: How Feedback Turns a Library into a Community of Scholarship,” Times Higher Education (July 2, 2025). https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/glad-you-asked-how-feedback-turns-library-community-scholarship.
  2. Co-authored with John Mack Freeman, “Co-creating the Beginnings of a Culture of Belonging at the Georgia Tech Library: Supervisors, Leaders, and a Proposed Model Forward,” in Perspectives on Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Libraries, edited by Mani, Nandita S. Mani, Michelle Cawley, and Emily P. Jones, IGI Global, 2023.  
  3. “Crazy Like the Fox: Atlanta’s Historic Preservation Schizophrenia,” Planning Atlanta, edited by Harley Etienne and Barbara Faga, eds. Washington, DC: APA Planners Press, 2015.
  4. Dixie Highway in Tennessee: Springfield to Chattanooga. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2011.
  5. “Elevator” and “Christine Ladd-Franklin” entries, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology, Oxford University Press, 2014.