Ohio State University Appoints Kristina Johnson as Its Next President

The Ohio State University board of trustees appointed Kristina M. Johnson as the sixteenth president in university history. She will take office on September 1.

Ohio State University is one of the nation’s largest educational institutions with nearly 47,000 undergraduate students and more than 14,000 graduate students, according to the latest figures supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 49 percent of the undergraduate student body.

Dr. Johnson has been serving as chancellor of the State University of New York System since 2017. In this role, she led a system of 64 public colleges and universities – including five academic health centers and three hospital systems – with 1.3 million students, 30,000 faculty, and 90,000 employees. Earlier in her career, Dr. Johnson served as under secretary of energy at the U.S. Department of Energy and held academic leadership positions at Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“Ohio State has always been a special place to me – well beyond its standing as one of the most respected teaching, research and patient-care institutions in the world,” Dr. Johnson said. “I am humbled to be selected to lead this great land-grant university, and I look forward to meeting with students, faculty and staff to begin our work together.”

Dr. Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree, a masters degree, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford University in California, where she was a varsity athlete in field hockey.