Walter Curran

Background

Curran was born and raised in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Education

He graduated with honors from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and received his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia (now Georgia Regents University) in Augusta, Georgia.

Career

He is the executive director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He currently serves as professor and chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine. He also serves as a group chairman and a principal investigator of NRG Oncology, an international cancer clinical trials network group funded by the National Cancer Institute.

Originally interested in pediatric oncology, he became a radiation oncologist after taking an open slot in a radiation oncology elective at the former Joint Center for Radiation Therapy in Boston, Massachusetts.

Prior to joining Emory University, Curran was professor and chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and clinical director of the Kimmel Cancer Center from 1994 to 2008. When appointed executive director of Winship Cancer Institute in 2009, he became the first radiation oncologist to serve as director of a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center.

He was also named a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Chair in Cancer Research in 2013. In 2015, former President Jimmy Carter named Curran as one of the physicians treating him for metastatic melanoma.

In his research, Curran has led several landmark clinical and translational trials and is responsible for defining a universally adopted staging system for patients with malignant glioma.

Achievements

• Curran is a fellow in the American College of Radiology and has been awarded honorary memberships in the European Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology and the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology. The Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research listed Curran among the top twenty principal investigators in terms of overall National Institutes of Health funding in 2012 and 2013, first in the state of Georgia, and first among cancer center directors.

Membership

He is a member of the board of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He serves as the founding secretary/treasurer of the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups and a board member of the Georgia Center for Oncology Research and Education (Georgia Congress of Racial Equality).