Kevin Purcell, Ph.D. Provost and Chief Academic Officer

Dr. Kevin M. Purcell currently serves as Provost and Chief Academic Officer for Harrisburg University of Science and technology.  Until recently Dr. Purcell served as Associate Professor of Data Science and the Academic Program Lead for Graduate Analytics as well as Doctoral Data Sciences programs. 

Kevin has earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in the biological sciences and has conducted postdoctoral fellowships in the Environmental and Conservation Sciences Group at North Dakota State University and within the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. 

Dr. Purcell manages a research program focused on the identification, prediction and mitigation of disturbance in complex systems. Kevin’s research involves a wide array of computational and statistical approaches, including machine and statistical learning, and forecast modeling. Kevin has published peer-reviewed and white papers in various data-driven research disciplines.

In addition to his research Kevin has spent years teaching quantitative and research methods to students and non-practitioners and has developed a number of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.  Dr. Purcell has served Harrisburg University with distinction in several positions over the years – including Adjunct Professor (2015) and Associate Professor (2018). He also served as Interim Provost in 2023.