As the sixth president of Stony Brook University (SBU), Ms. McInnis is well versed in the imperatives of higher education. In her presidential role leading an internationally recognized flagship institution ranked as the number one public university in New York, she is building SBU’s research, teaching, and healthcare missions while remaining committed to expanding educational opportunities for under-served and first-generation college students. Ms. McInnis also oversees Stony Brook Medicine, Long Island’s premier academic medical center and is a key player in Stony Brook’s role at Brookhaven National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility.

She is the inaugural board chair of the New York Climate Exchange that was selected to build an international climate-solutions center on Governors Island in New York City. Under her leadership, Stony Brook received a transformational $500 million gift from the Simons Foundation – the largest-ever unrestricted endowment gift made to a U.S. institution of higher education.

From 2016 to 2020, Ms. McInnis was a professor, provost, and executive vice president at the University of Texas at Austin, where she oversaw academic programs spanning the university’s libraries, museums, and eighteen colleges and schools. After earning her bachelor’s degree with highest distinction from the University of Virginia in 1988, Ms. McInnis earned master’s and Ph.D. degrees at Yale in the 1990s. For nearly 20 years, she was on the faculty at the University of Virginia, where she served in a variety of academic roles, ultimately as vice provost for academic affairs. Ms. McInnis, a multi-award-winning author and cultural historian of the American South, is the author or co-author of five books highlighting the interplay between politics and art in American history.

She was named a successor trustee in 2022.

Resides in Setauket, New York