Paul Curran (academic)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Professor Paul Curran (b. 17 May 1955) took up his post as Vice-Chancellor of Bournemouth University in September 2005 having previously served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Southampton where he is currently a Visiting Professor.

He is leading Bournemouth University through a period of rapid transformation involving a focus on academic strengths and investment in people, buildings, educational innovation and research.

Professor Paul Curran is a distinguished academic and research scientist. His award-winning work in Earth observation, involving the use of satellite sensors to monitor the environment at local to global scales, is widely published and he is the youngest recipient of the Remote Sensing Society’s Gold Medal.

Most recently (2007) The Queen approved the award of the Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) to Paul for his ‘international development of geographical science through remote sensing and Earth observation’.

As a leading member of the senior management team at Southampton, progressing from Head of Geography to Dean of Science, Professor Curran was credited with high-profile leadership as Head of the Winchester School of Art, part of the University of Southampton.

A former NASA research scientist and advisor to the European Space Agency, Professor Curran's research interests include investigations into global environmental change, in particular the movement of carbon between the atmosphere and forests.

He is currently a member of the Research Policy Committee and Business and Industry Policy Committees of Universities UK, the Board of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the Council of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Paul received a BSc from the University of Sheffield in 1976, an MBA from the University of Southampton in 1998 and PhD and DSc degrees from the University of Bristol in 1979 and 1991 respectively. He is a Chartered Geographer and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society and Chartered Management Institute. His PhD was followed by academic appointments at the Universities of Reading and Sheffield before moving to NASA Ames Research Center in 1988. He held established Chairs in Physical Geography at the University of Wales, Swansea from 1990 and the University of Southampton from 1993.

Professor Curran is married, with a daughter (at the University of Southampton). His leisure interests include middle distance running.