Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dr. Avinandan (Avi) Mukherjee joined Georgia Southern University as the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs on July 1, 2025. As Chief Academic Officer, Avi oversees all of the University’s academic affairs, including ten colleges, five libraries, research, student affairs, online learning, global education, and career education across three campuses, with a strong passion for academic excellence and student success.
Dr. Mukherjee has over 17 years of progressive experience in institutional leadership roles in American public higher education, including provost and chief academic officer of two large comprehensive research universities; dean of two AACSB-accredited colleges of business; and department chair of marketing for an AACSB-accredited school of business. Prior to joining Georgia Southern, Avi served as the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Marshall University from 2021 to 2025, where he oversaw all academic affairs for thirteen colleges, schools and libraries (including Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy), in addition to enrollment management, student affairs, research, institutional research, online learning, career education, certifications and microcredentials, etc. Prior to this role, he was Dean of the Lewis College of Business at Marshall (2017-2021) where he spearheaded a collaboration with external and internal stakeholders to garner more than $45 million in philanthropic support to strategically transform the college.
He has served as a tenured Professor of Marketing and International Business, with significant research publications and citations, and teaching at the undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral levels, in the U.S. and top international universities around the world.
He is the co-author of the renowned well-known book on sustainability, “An Integrated Approach to Environmental Management” published by John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey. Dr. Mukherjee is also the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed scholarly journal “International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing” published by Emerald, UK. His research has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed scholarly journals such as Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Journal of Marketing Management, Information Systems Management, Communications of the ACM, and so on. Avi has a uniquely international background having studied or worked in nine different countries, including United Kingdom, France, Singapore and India.Dr. Mukherjee is strongly committed to community partnerships and professional engagement. He has served on boards and/or executive committees of various national associations or organizations such as the NCAA Division I Degree Completion Award Committee, Council on Academic Affairs at APLU, Clayton Chamber of Commerce (Atlanta), AACSB International, West Virginia Public Education Collaborative, and the Society for Advancement of Management (SAM). He has served as Chair of the Regents Academic Advisory Committee on Business Administration, Management, and Economics for the University System of Georgia, and as a member on the Regents Administrative Advisory Committee on Economic Development for the University System of Georgia. He was included in the 2017 Education: Who’s Who in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.