Nicole Woolsey Biggart joined the Graduate School of Management in 1981 as one of the School’s first faculty members. On June 1, 2010, she assumed the Chevron Chair in Energy Efficiency, which directs the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center. She served as dean of the Graduate School of Management from July 1, 2003, to June 30, 2009. She held the Jerome J. and Elsie Suran Chair in Technology Management from 2002 to June 2010.

She is an expert in organizational theory and management of innovation. Her research interests include economic and organizational sociology, firm networks, industrial change and social bases of technology adoption. The author of seven books or book-length reports, she has also written more than 30 articles and chapters and numerous book reviews, and is a frequent presenter at international meetings.

She has studied a wide array of sectors, organizations and markets around the world, including research on the auto industries of South Korea, Taiwan, Spain and Argentina; the U.S. commercial building industry; Japanese management strategies in the U.S.; management and organization in the Far East; organizational explanations for scandals in the White House; organizational change in the U.S. Post Office; the sociology of labor and leisure; and the direct sales market. She is an expert in the formation of business clusters.