A new era begins today at SUNY. Today we officially welcome Chancellor Kristina Johnson as the 13th chancellor of The State University of New York. There’s a lot to look forward to.
Chancellor Johnson comes to SUNY with a large portfolio of accomplishments. She is an engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, and more. Prior to her joining us at SUNY, she was the co-founder and CEO at Cube Hydro Partners, a successful company that brought renewable energy to regions throughout the mid-atlantic. Before that venture started, she served as U.S. Under Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama. In the academic world, she served as Johns Hopkins University provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Dr. Johnson received her B.S. with distinction, M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. After a NATO post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, she joined the University of Colorado-Boulder’s faculty in 1985 as an assistant professor and, later, full professor. From 1994 to 1998, Dr. Johnson directed the NSF/ERC for Optoelectronics Computing Systems Center at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University.
But at her core, she is an engineer and a woman who loves to solve problems. Chancellor Johnson is an inventor and entrepreneur who holds 118 U.S. and international patents. She became a member of the National Academy of Inventors and the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, together with Gary Sharp, in 2015, for the development of polarization-control technologies that enabled high quality 3D movies and TV like Avatar.
There are many things to look forward to in SUNY’s future. As she begins her term, Chancellor Johnson wanted to send out her welcome message to the SUNY community. Watch below:
