Scott Barclay is the Interim Vice President of Research in ASU's Knowledge Enterprise and a Professor of Political Science. He previously served as Associate Vice President of Research in Knowledge Enterprise. He also served as the Chief Operating Officer of the NSF Inaugural Engines: Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE) from its inception until February 2025. From 2017 to 2023, Dr. Barclay served as the Director of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in ASU's New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.
He received his doctorate in political science from Northwestern University and his bachelor's degree (with first class honors) from the University of Queensland in Australia.
He previously served (2009-2011 and 2016-2017) as a Program Director in the Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation. He has held positions at Drexel University, University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), University at Albany, University of Washington, and U.C. Santa Cruz.
In his current role as the Interim Vice President for Research at Arizona State University, he has direct oversight over the wide array of Knowledge Enterprise core service and support units, including the Office of Research Administration, Research Compliance & Research Security, Contracting and Post-Award Management as well as direct our National Lab & FFRDC partnerships, and all of our international research locations and activity.
And, he continues his role strategically coordinating pursuit and implementation of ASU’s array of $50M+ projects in our large core areas: energy for AI; energy; space instrumentation; critical minerals; innovative energy storage; fusion; and, the deployment of quantum sensing in medicine. In this role, directly control all of the proposal development to award implementation pipeline around major initiatives, including ASU's Washington DC-based Research Engagement Office; the Research Development Office; and, the Research Project Management Office.