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Dr. Paul Ciccantell is a professor in the Department of Sociology 51¸£ÀûÉç Michigan University. He served as the director of the Kercher Center for Social Research at 51¸£ÀûÉç from 2007-17.

During the 2006-07 academic year, Ciccantell served as the program director for the sociology program at the National Science Foundation. His duties included co-managing a budget of more than $6 million, managing the review process for approximately 150 grant proposals, negotiating budgets for funded proposals, and assisting funded researchers with the organization and management of their projects. He worked to increase the diversity of reviewers and panelists for the program and helped to develop a planned foundation-wide initiative to increase funding for social and natural science research on environmental issues. He also helped to manage the planning and initial implementation of the re-competition of the program's funding for the General Social Survey, the largest single project funded by the program.

Ciccantell's research agenda addresses four linked questions from a comparative, historical and transnational perspective:

• What are the characteristics and consequences of the relationship between society and nature?
• What are the socioeconomic and environmental consequences of state development strategies?
• How do firms strategize and act in the context of a globalizing world economy?
• What roles have raw materials and transport industries played in the evolution of the world economy?

These broad questions guide the main components of his research program.