Professor Stephen Curry, Professor of Structural Biology, Department of Life Sciences, is to take up the new half-time post of Assistant Provost (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) on 1 October 2017, for an initial period of two years.
Reporting to the Provost, Professor Curry will help lead the College’s commitment to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion for staff and students across all protected characteristics. In this new role, Professor Curry will be responsible for engaging with senior leadership and colleagues across College to help facilitate appropriate and necessary cultural change, and will continue the gender equality work that has been spearheaded until now by Professor Dorothy Griffiths.
Professor Curry first joined Imperial as an undergraduate and was also awarded his PhD by the College. After undertaking several research posts in Europe and the USA, he became a Lecturer in Biophysics at Imperial in 1995. Subsequently, he was promoted to Reader and then Professor of Structural Biology. Professor Curry is currently Chair of the Equal Opportunities Committee in the Department of Life Sciences, and he held the role of Director of Undergraduate Studies in the department from 2011-2015.
Professor Curry’s research interests range from protein-drug interactions to the replication mechanisms of RNA viruses, including major pathogens such as foot and mouth disease virus and human norovirus. More recently, his research has focused on the culture of academia, and he has published papers on the use of citation metrics and the history of scholarly publication. He is active in public engagement work and writes regularly on science and science policy for the Guardian.