James Bullock is the 23rd dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He holds the Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair and a faculty appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

As the leader of the largest, oldest, and most academically diverse school at USC, Bullock is responsible for an institution composed of roughly 2,000 faculty and staff and nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students. He oversees an annual budget of more than $500 million, which supports operations across 814,000 square feet of research space in 56 buildings, a research enterprise that generates nearly $120 million in annual expenditures, and a technology infrastructure that supports more than 10,000 users.

Under Bullock’s leadership, USC Dornsife will focus on setting the global standard for a reinvigorated Liberal Arts in the 21st century — one where students and faculty couple deep, unbiased, and foundational knowledge with practical near-term skills to improve lives, shape the future, and provide answers to the most pressing problems of our age.

Before joining USC in 2025, Bullock was Dean of the School of Physical Sciences at UC Irvine, where he oversaw the departments of chemistry, earth system science, mathematics, and physics and astronomy. During his tenure, he doubled philanthropic support, launched signature interdisciplinary programs, and established the Eddleman Quantum Institute, UCI’s first dedicated quantum science research center.

In addition to his leadership experience, Bullock is an accomplished astrophysicist who combines analytic models, supercomputer simulations, and sophisticated observation technology to explore galaxy formation, dark matter, and fundamental questions about the nature of the universe. He has authored or co-authored nearly 400 scholarly papers, reflecting his multiple distinctions as a Web of Science “Highly Cited Researcher in Space Science.”

Bullock is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society, has served as the Chair of the Space Telescope Science Institute Council and Chair of the James Webb Telescope Users Committee, and as founder of the UC Southern California Center for Galaxy Evolution. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from The Ohio State University and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.