Prior to his appointment as Faculty Director of the Beall Center in 2014, Imran Currim served The Paul Merage School of Business as Associate Dean for 8 years, overseeing Masters, Executive, Undergraduate, and Doctoral Programs. Since 2014, Professor Currim has focused on the development of curriculum and new programs on innovation and entrepreneurship; a new Masters of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MIE) to begin in 2019, the first of its kind in the University of California system; an Undergraduate Minor; and Certificate Programs for Merage Graduate and Undergraduate Students.

Professor Currim is a world-renowned expert in the Design and Marketing of Products and Services. He has published over 50 articles in top journals; and has consulted, conducted projects and executive education for over 100 companies. During his teens and twenties in India, he worked on two startups, one in the product (umbrellas) and the other in the service (auto rental) spaces.

Professor Currim is the recipient of some of the highest honors in marketing:

• the American Marketing Association William O'Dell Award for "the article published in Journal of Marketing Research, judged to have made the most significant five-year contribution to marketing theory, methodology, and practice,"
• the American Marketing Association/Houghton Mifflin Distinguished Teaching in Marketing Award, "for contributions to teaching excellence."
• the Marketing Science Institute Robert D. Buzzell Award for “papers that have made the most significant contribution to marketing practice and thought.”
• the Emerald Literati Award for Excellence, for “an article published in European Journal of Marketing, “selected by the journal’s editorial team as a Highly Commended Article.”

Professor Currim’s papers have been finalists for:

• the Robert D. Buzzell Award of the Marketing Science Institute, Boston, Mass., awarded to “papers that have made the most significant contribution to marketing practice and thought.”    
• the American Marketing Association Paul E. Green Award for best paper published in Journal of Marketing Research.
• the European Marketing Academy Award for best paper published in International Journal of Research in Marketing.

Professor Currim received:

• The Wall Street Journal's 2008 Favorite Professor in an Executive MBA Program.
• Bloomberg Businessweek 2006 ranked his marketing course taught in the Executive MBA Program #3 in the world.

Professor Currim was recently named a Distinguished Professor at UCI, “a title that is the highest campus-level distinction and is reserved for senior faculty who have achieved the highest levels of scholarship over the course of their careers.” Prior to being promoted to Distinguished Professor he served as Chancellors Professor for fourteen years, “a title that is designed for faculty who have achieved acclaim for their accomplishments and who are highly likely to continue producing notable achievement in scholarship.” Prior to that he received “one of the highest commendations awarded by the University of California, Irvine Academic Senate, the Distinguished Faculty Lectureship Award.”

Professor Currim received a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute of the University of Bombay, India, an MBA from the Univ. of Wisconsin, and M.S. (Statistics) and PhD (Business) degrees from Stanford. He has taught earlier at UCLA, New York University and Yale.