Faculty Directory

Curtis K. Chan's research explores how people navigate challenges and opportunities in the workplace. In particular, he focuses on how occupational members—expert professionals trained in a specialized line of work—experience and engage with control and diversity when they work in organizations. To build new theory in this area, he conducts inductive, qualitative field research. He has studied airport security screeners, university career advisers in business schools, Instacart gig-workers, consultants, teachers, and visual practitioners, with award-winning papers published in top-tier academic journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Academy of Management Annals. He also has written pieces appearing in the Harvard Business Review. His research has received distinctions such as the ASQ Award for Scholarly Contribution, the Academy of Management’s Saroj Parasuraman Award for outstanding publication on gender and diversity, the Best Article Award from the Academy of Management Annals, and the Academy of Management’s ONE-SIM Outreach Award. His research has been mentioned in media outlets such as The Atlantic, Axios, and Scientific American, as well as in popular books like Bob Sutton’s The Asshole Survival Guide and podcasts like Adam Grant’s WorkLife.

He has received “Teaching Star” distinctions from the Dean and teaching committee at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management for outstanding teaching, based on having received most favorable evaluations from students, while also challenging them intellectually. He was named one of the Poets&Quants Top 50 Undergraduate Professors Of 2020. Chan serves on the Editorial Review Boards for Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science.

He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and master’s degree in Sociology from Harvard University. Before entering graduate school, Chan worked in the management and strategy consulting industry at the firm Innosight. He earned his bachelor’s degree in social anthropology and a secondary field in psychology from Harvard College, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. During college, he conducted ethnographic research on the cultural values of street dancers in New England and Miami, and the undergraduate thesis he wrote on this topic was awarded a Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for outstanding thesis research.