BIO

Curtis D. Byrd, Ed.D. was appointed as the Special Advisor to the Provost at Georgia State University (GSU) in January 2020. Dr. Byrd is using his expertise to consult and provide leadership in GSU faculty and graduate student diversity and inclusion efforts. He has amassed over 25 years in faculty and student diversity and inclusion programming on college campuses.  

Most recently he has served as a research associate and consultant for the HBCU STEM Undergraduate Success Center at Morehouse College. In November 2019 he assisted in the writing of a 9 million-dollar HBCU UP proposal, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.  Prior to his time at Morehouse he served for eight years as the Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies and Sr. Associate Director of Graduate Enrollment at Clark Atlanta University. 

Before working in the Atlanta University Center (AUC), he served as Director of Special Programs (Undergraduate Research) and Associate Director of the McNair Scholars program at University of Florida and Director of the McNair Scholars Program at Georgia State University.  Prior to his time working for the U.S. Department of Education-TRIO programs, for seven years he was Executive Director of the Peach State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (National Science Foundation) and Director of (Minority) Graduate Recruitment and Retention at the University of Georgia. While at UGA, the African American graduate student population nearly doubled under his leadership. Dr. Byrd’s honors and appointments include the following: serving on the National Advisory Board for Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, conference co-chair of the Annual National SAEOPP McNair Conference in Atlanta, GA,  and being awarded the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals (NAGAP) Enrollment Management grant for his doctoral research on Innovative Strategies for Diversifying the Professoriate. Further, he has two publications in the NAGAP Journal Prospectives in 2005 & 2016. 

For three years (2013-2016) Byrd served as an Action Research Consultant for the Southern Regional Educational Board’s Doctoral Scholars Program (DSP). His work with SREB-DSP created a sustained relationship with the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and programming to enhance their efforts in faculty diversity. 

He has several publications on innovative strategies to diversify graduate students and faculty ranks, and has co-authored a book called Academic Pipeline Programs-Diversifying Pathways from the Bachelors to the Professoriate. Byrd and his co-author (Dr. Rihana S. Mason also at GSU) created an assessment tool (THRIVE Inventory) to review diversity pathway initiatives. Further, he has had many speaking engagements over the years at a variety of conferences and universities. Most recently he presented on a panel discussion on “Best Practices in Minority Faculty Recruitment and Retention” at the Association of American Colleges and Universities.  Dr. Byrd earned both his B.S. in Psychology and M.Ed. in Higher Education at Iowa State University. In 2016, he graduated with his Doctorate in Education (Ed.D.) in Adult Leadership Education from the University of Georgia.
Dr. Curtis Byrd is happily married to Dr. Stephanie Evans.