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Steven C Currall

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs; David B. Miller Endowed Professor; Professor of Management and Organization; Professor of Psychology; Professor of Engineering Management, Information, and Systems, Southern Methodist University

Steven C. Currall is Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Southern Methodist University (SMU). As Provost, he oversees all aspects of academic activity at SMU including seven academic units: Cox School of Business, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman School of Law, Meadows School of the Arts, Lyle School of Engineering, Perkins School of Theology, and Simmons School of Education and Human Development, as well as Central University Libraries, the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, satellite campuses, and other academic programs. At SMU, Currall is the David B. Miller Endowed Professor and holds academic appointments in the Cox School of Business, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences and the Lyle School of Engineering.

Previously, Currall was the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors and member of the Executive Committee for the 10-campus University of California system's Global Health Institute. He also served on the Boards of Directors of the San Francisco Bay Area Council and the California Life Sciences Association.

Currall worked at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), where he served as Senior Advisor to the Chancellor for Strategic Projects and Initiatives, during which he co-chaired a campus-wide strategic visioning exercise to position UC Davis as the "University of the 21st Century." He also led planning for an additional campus in the Sacramento region. At UC Davis, Currall served as the Dean of the Graduate School of Management, leading the School to the highest MBA program ranking in its history. At University College London, he was the founding chair of the Department of Management Science and Innovation in the Faculty of Engineering Sciences, where he was also a Vice Dean. For 12 years, he served as a professor at Rice University and held the William and Stephanie Sick Professorship of Entrepreneurship in the George R. Brown School of Engineering. He founded the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.

He has led seven centers/institutes, and held campus-wide service roles as Chair of the Task Force on Faculty Salary Equity, Chair of the Strategic Review of Human Resources, Chair of Board of Directors of the Ecosystem for Biophotonics Innovation, and Vice Chair of Chancellor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Research.

A psychological scientist, Currall has conducted research and taught for nearly three decades on organizational psychology topics such as innovation, emerging technologies, negotiation, and corporate governance. At the invitation of the U.S. President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Currall was a member of the Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group. He has been a grantee on $21,533,893 in external funding of which over 78% came from referred research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health. Currall was lead author of a book on university-business-government collaboration entitled, Organized Innovation: A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity (Oxford, 2014). Based on a study funded by the NSF, the book is the culmination of a 10-year research project on interdisciplinary research involving science, engineering, and medicine. He has served as a member of several editorial review boards such as Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, and Organization Science. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Currall has been a member of the boards of BioHouston, Leadership in Medicine, Inc., Nanotechnology Foundation of Texas, and Interferometrics, Inc., a venture-funded medical device start-up. He has been quoted over 600 times in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, Business Week, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television, and the Nightly Business Report on public television.

Provost Currall earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a B.A. (cum laude) from Baylor University.

Experience

  • 2016–present
    Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Southern Methodist University
  • 2014–2015
    Chancellor's Senior Advisory for Strategic Projects and Initiatives, University of California, Davis
  • 2009–2014
    Dean, Graduate School of Management, University of California, Davis
  • 2005–2008
    Vice Dean of Enterprise, Chair and Professor, Department of Management Science and Innovation, University College London
  • 2001–2004
    William and Stephanie Sick Professor of Entrepreneurship and Associate Professor of Management, Rice University
  • 1999–2000
    Associate Professor of Management, Rice University
  • 1993–1999
    Assistant Professor of Management, Rice University

Education

  • 1990 
    Cornell University, Ph.D.
  • 1985 
    London School of Economics and Political Science, M.Sc.
  • 1982 
    Baylor University, B.A. (cum laude)

Publications

  • 2017
    Decision Diversion in Diverse Teams: Findings from Inside a Corporate Boardroom, Academy of Management Discoveries
  • 2016
    Managing the Innovators: Organizational and Professional Commitment of Scientists and Engineers, Research Policy
  • 2014
    Organized Innovation: A Blueprint for Renewing America's Prosperity, Oxford University Press
  • 2011
    Inside Multi-Disciplinary Science and Engineering Research Centers: The Impact of Organizational Climate on Invention Disclosures and Patents., Research Policy
  • 2009
    Nanotechnology and Society: New Insights into Public Perceptions. , Nature Nanotechnology
  • 2006
    What Drives Public Acceptance of Nanotechnology? , Nature Nanotechnology
  • 2005
    Pay Satisfaction and Organizational Outcomes, Personnel Psychology
  • 2004
    The Co-Evolution of Trust, Control, and Learning in Joint Ventures. , Organization Science
  • 2003
    The Fragility of Organizational Trust: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Enron, Organizational Dynamics
  • 2003
    E-Mail Escalation: Dispute Exacerbating Elements of E-mail Communication. , Human Relations
  • 2002
    A Multilevel Approach to Trust in Joint Ventures. , Journal of International Business Studies
  • 1999
    Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies to Study Group Processes: An Illustrative Study of a Corporate Board of Directors, Organizational Research Methods
  • 1995
    Measuring Trust Between Organizational Boundary Role Persons. , Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Professional Memberships

  • American Association for the Advancement of Science
  • Academy of Management
  • Association for Psychological Science

Honours

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science