The Center for Urban and Regional Analysis approved Alan Murray, associate professor of geography, early in June as the new director for the next four-year term beginning July 1.

Edward J. Malecki, the first director of the center, will complete his four-year term at the end of this month, which required the search committee to request nominations and suggestions in early February.

According to Paul A. Beck, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the search committee received a series of nominations, and have been in contact with those nominated to see if they were interested in being the director of the center.

“Only one person (Murray) responded that they had an interest in doing this,” Beck said. “He turned out to be a very strong candidate.”

Beck said that there are some qualities requisite for a director of the center, and Murray meets all of them.

Because the CURA is a research center, the director needs to be a strong researcher with a good record of publication, Beck said.

The director also needs to have a good record of obtaining outside grants from the National Science Foundation, he said.

“Alan had a strong research record, and a strong record of getting grants,” he said.

Beck also said he wanted a candidate who is a tenured faculty member, preferably a full professor rather than someone of low rank because lower ranking people concentrate their time with teaching or doing research.

“Alan actually had been recommended for promotion to full professor this year, and that recommendation was approved,” he said.

Beck also said that Murray is well respected in the research areas of the center because he works on a variety of things, mainly environment, transportation and urban public policy activities.

“He had all of those credentials (for being a director),” he said.

The center grew out of an earlier initiative under the charge of Morton O’Kelly, chair of department of geography, and was approved as the official center at Ohio State by the Board of Trustees four years ago.

Murray was affiliated and involved with the initiative in terms of the research project since he has been at the university.

“I’m excited to continue to build upon what’s already being done and hopefully expand some of the issues that the CURA is able to address,” Murray said.

Murray said that under his leadership the center will be making some changes.

“One difference will probably be a stronger research orientation,” Murray said. “One of the things we will do is build upon some of the research capabilities of the center, and hopefully in a way that provides outreach to address community, local, and state level planning types of issues.”

Another major difference will be the change of the office’s location to Derby Hall, which Murray is currently laying out, O’Kelly said.

“This will have space for graduate students and maybe some post-doctoral research fellows and a space where people can meet to exchange ideas, in a sort of collective atmosphere,” he said.

Murray said his goal with the center is to prepare for the future.

“I guess my ultimate goal is to build on the strengths that the center has developed over the years, and hopefully expand the research capacity and capabilities of the CURA in order to address planning and policy issues of importance or significance to the city of Columbus and the state of Ohio primarily,” he said.

O’Kelly said he hopes that the center generates some energetic projects that are funded and supported in a way that will allow them to conduct larger scale interdisciplinary work.

“We are looking forward to the center’s continued growth under his leadership,” he said.