Rate My Professor Naim Kapucu

Naim Kapucu, Ph.D., is Pegasus Professor of Public Administration and Policy and Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the College of Community Innovation and Education at the University of Central Florida. He earned his Ph.D. in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh in 2003 and a Master of Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997, along with earlier degrees from Turkish universities. Prior to joining UCF in 2003, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, and Robert Morris University. At UCF, he served as Director of the School of Public Administration from August 2015 to August 2020, founding Director of the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management from 2008 to 2011, and Director of the Master of Public Administration program from 2012 to 2015. He holds joint faculty appointments in the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs since 2021 and the Center for Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems since 2019. He has also held roles such as Interim Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice in 2022.

In the field of Social Science, Dr. Kapucu's research specializations include emergency and crisis management, network leadership and governance, decision-making in complex environments, collaborative public management, and social inquiry and public policy. He is the author and editor of ten books, such as Network Governance (with Qian Hu), The Network Governance in Response to Acts of Terrorism: Comparative Analyses, Managing Emergencies and Crises (with Alp Ozerdem), Disaster Resiliency: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (with Hawkins and Rivera), and Disaster and Development (with Liou). His publications appear in leading journals including Public Administration Review, Administration & Society, Journal of Public Administration Theory and Research, American Review of Public Administration, Public Administration, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, and Disasters. An elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, he has received the Pegasus Professor Award—the highest faculty distinction at UCF—in 2019, Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Applied Public Policy, Democratic Resilience in 2021-2022, multiple Fulbright Specialist awards, Research Incentive Awards in 2009, 2015, and 2021, Fred W. Riggs Award for Lifetime Scholarly Achievement in 2018, and numerous best paper awards from American Society for Public Administration conferences. He has secured external grants exceeding one million dollars from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Health and Human Services, and others, earning induction into UCF's Millionaires Club. Dr. Kapucu serves on the editorial boards of more than twenty journals in public administration.