Paul Curran (geographer)

Sir Paul James Curran FRGS (born 17 May 1955) was president of City, University of London between August 2010 and June 2021.

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.

He was chair of the national Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration (DDRB),[6][7][8] where his 2015 report on hospital doctors' contracts sparked controversy in a stated attempt to the move to seven-day-a-week healthcare services;[9] founding chair of the board of trustees for The Conversation UK;[10] Chair of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) Board and led the employers' negotiating team in the national pay negotiations;[11] a Member of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and its remuneration committee and the chair of its Audit & Risk Assurance Committee;[12] the chair of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Higher Education Workforce Steering Group; a Member of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Board and its Remuneration and Audit Committees; a member of the board of trustees for London Higher; and a member of Universities UK and its Research Policy and Innovation & Growth Policy Committees.

His PhD was followed by academic appointments at the universities of Reading and Sheffield before moving to NASA Ames Research Center in 1988.

[14] Curran holds honorary doctorates from Grand École ESCP, Paris (2017), and Peter the Great University St Petersburg, Russia (2019), and is a Freeman of the City of London (2017).