Dean's Profile
Dr. Rangapriya (Priya) Kannan is Dean of the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business at San José State University, a public research university at the heart of Silicon Valley, where she leads over 7,000 students and seven research centers and institutes.
A first-generation immigrant and the first woman and first person of Indian descent to permanently lead Lucas College, and the first Spartan alumna to do so, Kannan brings together scholarly distinction, executive leadership, and deep Silicon Valley industry relationships. Her career spans industry experience in India and Silicon Valley, faculty and leadership roles at the University of San Diego, where she was the first woman to be promoted early to Full Professor and the first person of Indian descent to be promoted early to Associate Professor, a visiting research fellowship at Cambridge Judge Business School, and an honorary research professorship at the University of Exeter Business School.
Kannan’s scholarly work examines how innovators and leaders create resources rather than simply allocate them at both the individual and institutional level. Her research has been published in the Strategic Management Journal, Organization Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business & Management, and other leading outlets. She has extended this work for broader audiences through Harvard Business Publishing’s Inspiring Minds and Inside Higher Ed.
Throughout her career, Kannan has been recognized for excellence in research, teaching, and institution building. She is a recipient of the 2026 Naari Trailblazer Award from the Indian Consulate and the Association of Indian Americans, and was named a 2025 Silicon Valley Woman of Influence. Earlier honors include the Clarence L. Steber Professorship at the University of San Diego and recognition among Poets&Quants’ Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors nationally.
She holds a PhD from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, a Master’s in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from SJSU, where she was a Sally Casanova Scholar, a Master’s in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Bombay. She is also a graduate of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India. Her early intellectual foundations in accounting, finance, and people management, and a PhD focused on innovation, strategy, and resourcing have shaped a career devoted to understanding and practicing resource creation at every level of institutional life to create positive impactful change.
