Curran earned a bachelor's degree in natural resources management from the University of Michigan in 1983, where she also minor in economics.
In 1990, she earned a master's of science degree in sociology and again minored in economics at North Carolina State University.
Curran completed a doctorate in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994.
[1] Curran began her teaching career in 1996 at Princeton University,[2] then joined the University of Washington faculty in 2005.
[3][4] She became chief editor of the academic journal Demography in 2022.