Brian Gray Named Interim Dean for Culverhouse College of Commerce
- June 4th, 2015
- in Behind the Scenes: Meet our Staff & Faculty, UA EMBA Latest News/Events
Dr. Brian Gray has been named interim dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce at The University of Alabama effective July 1. Gray will fill the interim role while UA carries out a national search for a new dean to replace Dr. J. Michael Hardin who steps down June 30 to become provost at Samford University in Birmingham.
“Brian has a wealth of administrative, teaching and research experience and will be an effective leader during this important, transitional period for the College,” said Dr. Joe Benson, UA interim provost, in making the announcement.
Currently Gray is serving as associate dean of the Manderson Graduate School of Business in the Culverhouse College of Commerce. He is also the Harrison Family Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow and professor of statistics in the department of information systems, management science, and statistics. Gray joined UA in 1990 and began teaching statistics in the Executive MBA Program in 1993. He has received multiple teaching awards, including the UA National Alumni Association Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award in 2006 and most recently the 2014 Executive MBA Faculty Excellence Award. Although he will be assuming the new position very soon, he plans on continuing to teach in the EMBA Program.
According to Gray, he is looking forward to serving as interim dean of one of the top ranked business schools in the nation. “Knowing that we had a great team in place in the Manderson Graduate School of Business and the Executive MBA Program made the decision to accept the position easier,” said Gray.
His research interests include applied statistics, exploratory data analysis, data mining, business analytics, regression analysis, statistical computing and statistical graphics. He has published his research in various academic journals, and co-authored two books, “Basic Statistical Ideas for Managers (Second Edition)” and “Business Cases in Statistical Decision Making: Computer Based Applications.”
Prior to joining UA, Gray served seven years as a faculty member in the department of finance and decision sciences at Texas Christian University.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, with minors in business administration and computer science, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1978. He earned master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematical sciences from Clemson University in 1980 and 1983, respectively.