Caroline Attardo Genco Becomes University at Buffalo’s First Female President

Dr Caroline Attardo Genco took office as the 16th president of the University at Buffalo on or about 10 August 2026, becoming the first woman to lead the State University of New York campus in its 180-year history. The SUNY Board of Trustees unanimously approved her appointment on 2 June following an international search, SUNY said.

Genco arrives from Tufts University, where she served as provost and senior vice president. A microbiologist and immunologist by training, she grew up in Buffalo and earned her bachelor’s degree from SUNY Fredonia before building an academic research career, giving her both an outsider’s administrative record and a personal tie to the city.

A research university with growing ambitions

UB is SUNY’s largest and most research-intensive campus, with a medical school, an engineering programme and a role as an anchor institution in western New York’s economy. Genco succeeds Satish K. Tripathi, who led the university for more than a decade. SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr said the trustees were confident her scientific background and administrative experience at Tufts positioned her to build on UB’s research growth.

Following a wave of scientist-presidents

UB’s enrolment has grown steadily over the past decade, and the university has expanded its medical campus in downtown Buffalo as part of a broader push to anchor biomedical research and jobs in the city. Genco’s appointment continues a pattern among large public research universities of selecting sitting provosts with active scientific research records, rather than career administrators, to lead them, as competition intensifies for federal research funding and top faculty. Her own research has focused on the immune response to bacterial infection.

Why It Matters

A president’s priorities shape a research university’s investment in science, its relationship with the surrounding city and, increasingly, how it withstands pressure on federal research budgets. Genco’s arrival as UB’s first woman president after nearly two centuries also marks a symbolic milestone for a system that has faced scrutiny over the pace of gender diversity in its top leadership ranks.