James C. Bean

James C. Bean began as senior vice president and provost on July 1, 2008. As provost, Bean serves as the chief academic officer at the University of Oregon, fostering continued academic excellence in undergraduate education, graduate education, research activity, international programs, and service to Oregonians.

Before taking the post, Bean had served as the Harry B. Miller Professor and Dean of the Charles H. Lundquist College of Business since 2004. Prior to that, Bean was associate dean for academic affairs and professor of industrial and operations engineering at the University of Michigan College of Engineering, where he cofounded a manufacturing institute, formally combining efforts of the engineering and business schools. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski recently appointed Bean as a technical adviser to the Oregon Innovation Council.

Bean, who grew up in Beaverton and graduated from Beaverton High School, earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Stanford University in operations research and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Harvey Mudd College. His research interests focus on genetic algorithms, integer programming, and infinite horizon optimization as applied to equipment replacement, capacity expansion, asset management, production, and scheduling.

Over the course of his career, Bean’s research has been published in numerous journals. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Scheduling, past associate editor of Management Science and former editor of the ORSA/TIMS Annual Comprehensive Index. Professor Bean has worked on various industrial projects with companies such as General Cable (production control), Penford Products (production scheduling), Homart Development (divestiture scheduling), General Motors (scheduling as well as equipment replacement and capacity planning), Michigan Consolidated Gas Company and IBM (equipment replacement), Bethlehem Steel (capacity planning), and Tektronix (forecasting).