President Andrea Goldsmith
Andrea Goldsmith is the seventh president of Stony Brook University, a research flagship of the State University of New York system and the No. 1 public university in New York state. Appointed in February 2025, President Goldsmith also oversees Stony Brook Medicine, Long Island’s premier academic healthcare system; co-chairs Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which manages Brookhaven National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy; and chairs the board of the New York Climate Exchange, a historic partnership anchored by Stony Brook University to build an international climate solutions center on Governors Island.
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 University for five years and spent 21 years on Stanford University’s engineering faculty. Her research in wireless communications translated into new technologies and two successful startup companies where she served as chief technology officer: Plume Wi-Fi and Quantenna Communications Inc. Today, she lends her expertise as a board member of Intel and Crown Castle Inc.
A champion of access, opportunity and upward mobility, President Goldsmith attributes her entire public school journey — from grade school through graduate school — to 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
During the first year of her presidency at Stony Brook, President Goldsmith has continued to build momentum across the university’s mission, including strengthening local and statewide partnerships, enhancing the student experience, enriching clinical care, securing substantial investments and advancing innovative research projects. This includes the historic $300 million investment Stony Brook received in September 2025 from Gov. Kathy Hochul to establish the Quantum Research and Innovation Hub, as well as the consistent advocacy and collaboration with Stony Brook’s federal delegation — including Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nick LaLota — to bolster crucial supportive partnerships. President Goldsmith remains a fierce advocate for maintaining the affordable, accessible and comprehensive education of the highest quality that Stony Brook offers to every student.
She is leading the development of ASPIRE 2035, Stony Brook’s strategic vision to accelerate discovery at the frontiers of knowledge; set a new standard for educational excellence and access; propel the university’s global leadership; ignite regional prosperity; reimagine medicine and health; and enable the foundations of long‑term success to position Stony Brook as a national model for American possibility and progress.
Driven by her commitment to the success of students, faculty and staff, as well as 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%. She was instrumental in founding the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute and launching cross-cutting research initiatives in robotics, blockchain, wireless technologies and artificial intelligence. Under her leadership, corporate partnerships, innovation and entrepreneurship thrived.
At Stanford, she chaired the Faculty Senate, served multiple terms as a senator, and served on its Academic Council Advisory Board, Budget Group and Committee on Research. She also served on the Planning and Policy Board, the commissions on graduate and undergraduate education, and the Task Force on Women and Leadership.
In 2021, the White House appointed her to President Joe Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to advise the president on matters related to science, technology innovation, sustainability and public policy. In 2025, she was named to City & State New York’s Responsible 100 list.
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 the 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 both 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, as well as signal processing and their application to wireless communications, interconnected systems and neuroscience. In 2025, she received the Brooklyn 6G Summit Lifetime Academic Achievement Award, which is given to individuals who have made great strides in telecommunications, wireless networking and academia.
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®, as well as the IEEE MildredDresselhaus 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 — becoming 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. In March 2026, she was inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Council Hall of Fame, and in June 2026, she was the inaugural inductee into Stony Brook’s chapter of the National Academy of Inventors Hall of Fame in recognition of her outstanding achievements. In July 2026, she was announced as the recipient of the prestigious 2027 Claude E. Shannon Award for outstanding contributions to the field of information theory.
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 and whose second edition will appear in January 2027. 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 first-year students 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 doctoral students, 22 postdoctoral 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. She is also the recipient of the IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award, the IEEE Women in Communications Engineering Mentorship Award and the inaugural Stanford Postdoc Mentoring Award.
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.