STONY BROOK, NEW YORK – August 4, 2025 – Andrea Goldsmith, PhD, officially begins her tenure today as the seventh president of Stony Brook University, following her appointment by the State University of New York Board of Trustees in February.
Dr. Goldsmith brings decades of experience in higher education and industry, having held leadership positions at Princeton and Stanford Universities, as well as at the California Institute of Technology. She is also a pioneering researcher in engineering and the founder of several technology companies.
“It is an honor to join Stony Brook University – a champion of excellent, affordable education that will launch students into very successful careers and lives as citizens of the world. From my very first interview it was clear that there is so much opportunity for advancing Stony Brook’s excellence across all dimensions of education, research, innovation and clinical care,” said President Goldsmith. “I look forward to continuing the momentum to make Stony Brook one of the very best public universities in the nation by supporting our students in their education, growing research, empowering our faculty, pursuing innovation and scholarship and building a brighter future for New York.”
As Stony Brook’s chief executive, President Goldsmith will lead both the university and the Stony Brook Medicine health system – Long Island’s premier academic medical center – which includes five health sciences schools, three hospitals, a skilled nursing facility, and more than 200 community-based healthcare locations. She will also play a key role in New York State’s economic development and Stony Brook’s partnership in co-managing Brookhaven National Laboratory.
In the months leading up to her official start, Dr. Goldsmith met with numerous students, faculty, staff, and community members to begin shaping her priorities for the university’s future.
SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. said, “I could not be more excited about Dr. Andrea Goldsmith’s leadership and the future of Stony Brook University. Dr. Goldsmith’s experience as an academic, dean, and researcher – as well as an innovator and entrepreneur – will serve our students, faculty, staff, and the campus community well as she builds on Stony Brook’s reputation as a world-class higher education institution.”
Kevin Law, Chairman, Stony Brook Council and Presidential Search Committee, said, “Stony Brook University is a world-class flagship institution on a remarkable upward trajectory, educating the next generation of leaders and driving societal progress through groundbreaking research, economic development, and innovation. During the presidential search process, Dr. Goldsmith quickly distinguished herself with a compelling vision, deep expertise, and unwavering commitment to advancing the university’s mission. She is the ideal leader to guide Stony Brook as it ascends to an even more prominent role in shaping the future of higher education.”
About President Goldsmith
With more than three decades of experience in university leadership, teaching and research, President Goldsmith has consistently driven transformational impact and excellence. She served as dean of engineering and applied science at Princeton for five years and spent 21 years on Stanford’s engineering faculty. Her research in wireless communications translated into new technologies and two successful start-up companies where she served as chief technology officer: Plume Wi-Fi and Quantenna Communications. Today, she lends her expertise as a board member of Intel (INTC), Medtronic (MDT) and Crown Castle Inc. (CCI).
A champion of access, opportunity and upward mobility, President Goldsmith attributes her entire public-school journey — from K–12 and community college through graduate studies — as the foundation of her professional success. She earned her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of California, Berkeley.
Mission-Focused Transformational Leadership
Driven by her commitment to the success of students, faculty and staff and her leadership style that brings people together to advance a shared vision, President Goldsmith transformed Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science during her tenure as its dean. Key accomplishments included significant expansion of disciplinary and interdisciplinary faculty and graduate students in the school while increasing its sponsored research by 25 percent. She was instrumental in founding the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute and launching cross-cutting research initiatives in robotics, blockchain, wireless technologies and AI. Under her leadership, corporate partnerships, innovation and entrepreneurship thrived.
At Stanford, she chaired the Faculty Senate, was elected to multiple terms as a senator and served as a member of university-wide committees on education, research, finance and faculty leadership.
In 2021, she was appointed by the White House to President Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to advise the president on matters related to science, technology innovation, sustainability and public policy.
As founding chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Board of Directors Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, President Goldsmith set a new standard for inclusivity. She led the IEEE Information Theory Society as president, served as founding chair of its student committee and launched the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory as its founding editor-in-chief. She has also served on the boards of governors for the IEEE Information Theory Society and the IEEE Communications Society.
Pioneering Wireless Technology Research and Innovation
President Goldsmith’s research interests are in information, communication and control theories and signal processing and their application to wireless communications, interconnected systems and neuroscience.
An inventor who holds 38 patents — all in wireless technology — she has received numerous honors and awards for her work, including induction into the Wireless History Foundation’s Wireless Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame®, and the IEEE Dresselhaus Medal, which recognizes outstanding technical contributions to and leadership in wireless communications theory and practice. In 2020, President Goldsmith received The Marconi Prize — the highest honor in telecommunications research — as the first woman to receive this recognition. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Excellence in Education, Mentorship and Service
President Goldsmith is first and foremost an educator, with a successful track record of educating and mentoring generations of engineers and entrepreneurs. She has authored what is considered the foundational textbook used in wireless communications classes, Wireless Communications (Cambridge University Press), which has been translated into three languages. She is the co-author of the books MIMO Wireless Communications, Principles of Cognitive Radio, and Machine Learning and Wireless Communications, all published by Cambridge University Press.
Goldsmith has taught and mentored students ranging from freshmen to advanced graduate students. Beyond the classroom, she engages deeply with her students to help them develop into successful engineers and leaders. Her commitment to mentoring pays forward the outstanding mentoring she received from her own professors and professional colleagues. She has supervised 26 PhD students, 22 post-doctoral researchers and a large number of undergraduate and graduate research projects. In 2024, she was honored with the IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal in recognition of educating, mentoring and inspiring generations of students and for authoring pioneering textbooks in advanced digital communications.
As the university’s seventh president, Goldsmith is focused on achieving Stony Brook’s bold aspirations and meeting the needs of the communities it serves by accelerating its excellence across all dimensions of education, clinical care, research and innovation.
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